The University of Alabama at Birmingham Athletics
UAB
Southern Miss
UAB Wins Game One Versus Southern Miss, 6-1
4/20/2007 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
April 20, 2007
HATTIESBURG, Miss. - UAB played small ball and played it well Friday night to earn a 6-1 victory against Southern Miss at Pete Taylor Park. Junior outfielder Phil Bell ran his hit streak to 11 games by going 2-for-5 with two bunt singles, while junior Ben Styes earned the win on the mound after giving up no runs on just two hits.
UAB is now 18-22 (5-5 C-USA) on the year after beating Southern Miss for the first time since 2005. The Golden Eagles fall to 23-16 (4-9 C-USA).
Styes improves to 3-4 with the win, while junior right-hander Brandon Wallace threw 3.1 innings in relief to earn his third save of the season. USM's Ryan Belanger got the loss after throwing six innings in which he allowed four unearned runs and struck out five.
Senior catcher Danny Sawyer was 2-for-4 in the game and freshman shortstop Jonathan Merritt was 2-for-4 with two runs scored to join Bell as Blazers with multiple-hit performances.
The Golden Eagles were led by third baseman James Ewing who was 2-for-4 with an RBI.
"I was really proud of our pitchers tonight," said UAB head coach Brian Shoop. "It's hard to play errorless all the time and they've (Southern Miss) been unbelievable defensively but you can't be great 56 games a year."
Southern Miss committed five errors to aid the UAB victory.
UAB broke the scoreless tie in the top of the sixth when Hardy reached on a fielder's choice and later scored when junior outfielder Phil Bell grounded a shot back to Belanger who fired a throw to home plate in attempt to gun out Hardy, however the throw was away from the catcher for an error to score the run and also allow Bell to move up to second.
With Bell on second and Patmon, who previously reached base on an error by Dozier and then moved to third on the error by Belanger, on third, Keedy stepped to the plate and drilled a two-run single to left field to score both runners and make it 3-0 in favor of UAB.
Southern Miss had three errors in the sixth to aid the Blazer charge.
The Blazers used classic small ball to up their lead to 4-0 in the seventh. Merritt beat out a bunt single to get aboard and then moved up to second on a throwing error by Belanger who was attempting to putout the freshman speedster at first. Merritt eventually scored when Hardy perfectly placed a bunt-single down the first base line.
The Golden Eagles put the pressure on in the bottom of the eighth when a single by third baseman James Ewing and two walks issued by Wallace loaded the bases with two outs. However, Wallace dug in and sat second baseman Bailey Hartel down on three straight pitches to escape the inning with the 4-0 lead.
In the top of the ninth, UAB padded its lead to 6-0. Merritt singled up the middle to lead off the inning and then scored on Bell's second bunt-single of the night down the first base line. The second run of the inning came when junior second baseman Tyler Rollin scored on a wild pitch after he bunted his way on on a fielder's choice.
Southern Miss finally lit up its run column on the scoreboard on an RBI-single by Ewing, scoring Dozier, however it was too late as the Blazers held on to win, 6-1.
The two teams will meet for game two of the three-game series on Saturday at 4 p.m. at Pete Taylor Park.
