St. Mary's College did it all on the offensive side of the ball tonight. Whether is was bunts, extra base hits or home runs the Gaels looked like they could do no wrong.
Lead off batters in first two innings reached on bunts. Moved the runners successfully with steals and sacrifice bunts. And the Gaels hit back-to-back home runs in the first inning off of freshman pitcher Geoffrey Thomas to jump out to an early 3-0 lead.
The walk bug got to Thomas in the third inning when he walked three in a row to load the bases with one out before being pulled for Seth Hester. Hester gave up a grand slam increasing the Gaels lead to eight runs.
Southern Miss staged a small rally in the bottom of the third. After a lead of homer by Marc Bourgeois, USM had the bases loaded with no outs, but only managed to get two more runs. After three innings, the Golden Eagles were down 10-3. USM scored three more runs with a home run by B.A. Vollmuth in the bottom of the fourth to cut the lead to 10-6.
SMC scored nine more runs, including seven in the 7th inning to increase the lead to 19-6. USM scored four more in the bottom of the 8th and another in the 9th, but it wasn't enough to get the win. St. Mary's wins 19-11.
Bottom line - tonight was an ugly night for Southern Miss. Everything went SMC's way. Something this team is missing right now is leadership. Last year, seniors like Bo Davis and Brian Dozier were instrumental in leading the team to the College World Series. This year, no one has stepped up and taken this role. If the Golden Eagles keep playing like this, they can kiss the regional appearance streak goodbye. Heck, they might not even make it to the Conference USA tournament. Who will step up and rally the troops?
