Southern Miss set the pace early and then stayed in front all night Friday.

Matthew Etzel drove in two runs with a triple and then scored on an error during a four-run rally in the second inning, and Southern Miss held off Dallas Baptist to win 4-3 in the opener of a three-game series in Hattiesburg.

Slade Wilks homered to start the second-inning rally for the Golden Eagles (6-3) and finished 2-for-3. Etzel also had two hits in the game.

Southern Miss pitcher Tanner Hall threw six innings and allowed three runs, two earned, on six hits. He walked one batter and struck out six.

Kros Sivley pitched 2 1/3 innings of scoreless relief, with five strikeouts, and Justin Storm got the last two outs of the game for his second save.

Dallas Baptist (7-2) scored all of its runs in the top of the sixth inning. Nate Rombach drove in two runs with a double and scored on a wild pitch.

Southern Miss had lost two in a row, and three of its last four games coming into the weekend.

Game two of the three game series is Saturday at 2 p.m. at Pete Taylor Park.

Ohio State 8, Mississippi State 3
For the second straight Friday, Mississippi State had a sour start to its weekend.

Tyler Pettorini doubled and drove in three runs, Henry Kaczmar went 2-for-5 with a double and two runs scored, and Ohio State (4-5) beat Mississippi State (6-4) in its opening game at the Frisco Baseball Classic.

Pettorini hit a bases-clearing double in the sixth inning to put Ohio State ahead 5-1, and three errors in the seventh inning led to three more runs for the Buckeyes.

Mississippi State, which has scored nine runs or more in six of its nine games this season, finished with only three hits. Ohio State’s pitchers walked 12 batters, including four in the ninth inning, but the Bulldogs left 16 runners on base. They left the bases loaded in the ninth inning.

It’s the second time in three weekends that the Bulldogs have lost a series opener. They’ll play Oklahoma Saturday at 1 p.m. and California on Sunday at 11 a.m. in the three-day event in Frisco, Texas.

Ole Miss 5, Maryland 1
Ethan Groff went 2-for-4 with a home run and four RBIs, Kemp Alderman hit a solo home run, and Ole Miss beat Maryland — again — at the Cambria College Classic.

Groff’s two-run home run in the fifth inning snapped a 1-1 tie, and his two-run single in the ninth added some insurance runs for the Rebels (8-2).

Jack Dougherty allowed one run and struck out seven batters in six innings to get the win for Ole Miss. Mason Nichols pitched 2 2/3 innings of scoreless relief for his second save of the season.

Ole Miss took two of three games from Maryland (4-5) in a series in Oxford last weekend, and the two teams met again in the opener of a weekend event in U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis.

Ole Miss will play Minnesota Saturday at 7 p.m. and Nebraska on Sunday at 1:30 p.m., as it continues a stretch of the schedule loaded with opponents from the Big Ten Conference.

In addition to the series with Maryland last weekend, and a three-game home series vs. Purdue March 10-12, the Rebels play nine games against teams from the Big Ten in a 12-game stretch.