College baseball roundup: Southern Miss clinches series; Ole Miss and Mississippi State stumble on Saturday
Published 6:49 pm Saturday, April 29, 2023
- Southern Miss' Dustin Dickerson (10) celebrates with his teammates in the dugout after hitting a solo home run Saturday against Arkansas State. Southern Miss won the game, 4-1. (Joe Harper/BGNPhoto.com/Southern Miss Athletics)
HATTIESBURG — The weather is warming up, and Southern Miss might be too.
Christopher Sargent homered and drove in three runs, Dustin Dickerson went 2-for-2 and scored twice, and Southern Miss defeated Arkansas State 4-1 on Saturday for its fifth consecutive victory.
Billy Oldham allowed one run and struck out seven batters in seven innings for Southern Miss (27-15, 13-7 Sun Belt Conference). Justin Storm pitched two innings of scoreless relief for his sixth save of the season.
Sargent got the Golden Eagles started with a two-run single in the first inning, and hit a solo home run in the sixth. Dickerson also hit a solo home run in the third inning.
“Obviously, that’s what we come out here to do is win every game. That’s what we prepare to do. It doesn’t always work out that way and it’s hard to do. You’ve got to do a lot of things right,” Southern Miss coach Scott Berry said. “What we did today was we had outstanding pitching, really good defense when it was presented to us, and then we had timely hitting. There wasn’t a lost of offense like we’ve seen in the past four games, but it was enough behind Oldham and Storm to win this baseball game.”
Brandon Hager homered in the fourth inning for the only run for Arkansas State (15-24, 5-13), which has scored two runs in the first two games of the series. The finale is Sunday at 1 p.m. at Pete Taylor Park in Hattiesburg. The game will be streamed on ESPN+.
Georgia 7, Ole Miss 3
Parks Harber homered and drove in three runs, and Charlie Goldstein pitched seven solid innings as Georgia (24-19, 8-12 Southeastern Conference) evened its series with Ole Miss (22-21, 4-16) Saturday in Oxford.
Harber drove in a run with a fielder’s choice in the third inning, and hit a two-run home run in the fifth to put Georgia ahead 5-1.
Calvin Harris hit a two-run homer in the sixth to keep Ole Miss in it, but Georgia tacked on two more runs in the eighth on RBI singles by Ben Anderson and Connor Tate to make it 7-3.
Kemp Alderman also hit a home run for Ole Miss, his 18th of the season.
Goldstein allowed three runs and seven hits in seven innings, but did not walk a batter. He had four strikeouts.
The finale of the three-game series is Sunday at 1:30 p.m. It will stream on SEC Network+.
Tennessee 13, Mississippi State 2
Tennessee (30-14, 11-10 SEC) hit four home runs in the first four innings, including two by Christian Moore, and routed Mississippi State (24-20, 6-15) to complete a three-game sweep.
Moore hit a three-run homer in the second inning and a solo shot in the fourth. Jared Dickey and Christian Scott also hit three-run homers — both in the first inning — as Tennessee raced to a 12-1 lead.
Tennessee’s Drew Beam (6-2) pitched a seven-inning complete game and allowed only three hits and one walk, while striking out seven.
Dakota Jordan hit an RBI triple and Colton Ledbetter a solo home run for Mississippi State. After winning two SEC series in a row, the Bulldogs have dropped the last two and five of its last seven games overall. They host Arkansas next weekend.