Racers Fall In Series Finale at Southern Miss

Sunday, February 16

Hattiesburg, Miss.

1 p.m.

Murray State

0-3

Southern Mississippi

3-0

Murray State

Southern Miss

Photo by: Southern Miss Athletics

2/16/2020 4:39:00 PM | Baseball

Box Score

After two strong pitching performances to open the season, the Murray State baseball team broke out the bats, Sunday afternoon at Southern Mississippi. Unfortunately, the result was the same as the first two games as the Racers fell to the Golden Eagles, 8-7.

"I'm not big on moral victories, but there are a lot of positives to take away from the 3 games," said head coach Dan Skirka. "This time of year, it is important to get guys in and see who performs when their name is called and a lot of guys performed well. Now we need to get back to work this week and fix some mistakes and keep getting better every time out."

Ryan Perkins had two hits and two runs batted in while Jordan Holly also had two hits while driving in a run. Seven different Racers crossed home plate in the contest as well.

After getting shutout in the first game of the season and not scoring until the ninth inning in game two, the Racers jumped out to a quick 2-0 lead in the first inning today on four singles, including RBI base knocks by Perkins and Skylar McPhee.

Sam Gardner kept USM off the board in the first but the Golden Eagles were able to tie it up in the second.

The Racers quickly retook the lead in the third as Bryson Bloomer led the inning off with a walk before coming around to score on a double by Perkins. However, Southern Miss quickly erased the deficit with two runs in the home half.

After 2.1 scoreless innings by Justin Thomas, the Racers retook the lead again in the sixth on just one hit. A wild pitch brought in the tying run before Holly added a base hit to center to give MSU the lead. Jake Slunder followed with a sacrifice fly to tack on another run and give the Racers a 6-4 lead.

Jake Jones worked a scoreless bottom of the sixth but was not as fortunate in the seventh as the Golden Eagles scored three runs to take the lead once more.

Like yesterday, Southern Miss added a key insurance run in the eighth as Brock Anderson hit a pinch-hit home run to lead off the ninth inning for the Racers, but it was not quite enough as the Racers fell by one.

Murray State will return to action Wednesday afternoon as they travel to Western Kentucky. First pitch from Bowling Green is set for 3 p.m.