No. 14 Alabama Baseball Falls to Southern Miss in Final Pre-SEC Game

The Alabama baseball team fell for the second time in 2024 in its last game before conference play.

HATTIESBURG, Miss.— The final game before SEC play on the slate for Alabama didn’t promise to be easy. For the second time this season, the No. 14 Crimson Tide faced one of the preeminent mid-major programs in college baseball, this time in a true road game at Southern Miss. The Golden Eagles won the last time this matchup was contested in Pete Taylor Park.

On Tuesday night, they won again, 9-7, to hand Alabama (15-2) its second defeat of the 2024 campaign. A furious five-run rally with one down in the top of the ninth wasn't enough to bring Alabama all the way back.

"We just didn't make some plays there [in the game]," head coach Rob Vaughn said. "We didn't quite make enough plays against a good team in a hostile environment on the road. That's what I told our boys. [The] two losses this year are to two guys that are gonna play in the postseason, and maybe host.

The effort has been there in both. We brought the tying run to the plate in the ninth in both, and with a 9-2 [Southern Miss] lead here, that's a tough one."

The first inning was, as they go, fairly strange. The top half included center fielder TJ McCants hitting into an unconventional 3-6 double play. The home frame saw back-to-back fielders’ choices hit to the Alabama infield which might have been turned for double plays in another life. As it was, immediately following that sequence, starting pitcher Zane Adams walked two in a row and then surrendered a bases-clearing double to Southern Miss first baseman Davis Gillespie. McCants looked like he may have had a beat on it, but it sailed over his head after he doubled back to try and catch it.

Vaughn believed his team had some hard luck in the opening inning, failing to make plays that were a difference in the game. Had either double play been turned by the infield, the late comeback attempt might've kept the game going past the regulation innings.

That early momentum-changer wasn’t all the Golden Eagles had for Adams. In the very next home half-inning, shortstop Ozzie Pratt greeted him with a leadoff double and later scored. Pratt ran the bases hard all game, adding another run in the sixth inning after relief pitcher Matthew Heiberger botched a pickoff attempt.

The Crimson Tide got on the board in the third inning when second baseman Bryce Eblin led off the frame with his fourth long ball of the season. Evan Sleight hit a solo home run to right field to welcome Chase Adams to the bump in the sixth. McCants kept his hit streak going to 17 games with a seventh-inning hustle double but got stranded 90 feet from home plate when Sleight struck out looking.

The three-run deficits created by the two Alabama home runs ended up being as close as the visitors got after it was 3-0 through one inning of play, until a late rally in the ninth. The Crimson Tide loaded them in the ninth inning with one gone on its last call. Sleight cleared them with a triple, almost one-upping Gillespie. Pinch hitter Kade Snell, who appeared as a southpaw pitcher over the weekend against Lipscomb, hit an opposite-field home run to score himself and Sleight.

Catcher Mac Guscette singled next. That brought the tying run to the dish. Infielder Max Grant, who came in at first base and previously had one at-bat and one hit in his Alabama career, grounded out on a ball hit too slowly to end the game with a twin killing. The last hope came down to freshman shortstop Justin Lebron. He finished an 0-5 day with a first-pitch lineout that closed out the victory for the Golden Eagles.

Adams exited with four runs on his ledger, giving way to Tyler Fay. It was a similar story to the Crimson Tide’s game at Regions Field against UAB, where Fay relieved Adams following early inning struggles by the latter. "Zane kinda had some tough luck," Vaughn said. "He threw the ball okay. [He] wasn't getting loud contact. We just couldn't get that swing-and-miss." Fay struck out three and had a shutout line. Right-hander Aidan Moza made his first bullpen appearance since being elevated to the starting rotation, allowing a solo home run. Heiberger gave up two, one on the aforementioned pickoff play and another on an RBI single by Golden Eagles leadoff man Dalton McIntyre. Vaughn simultaneously complimented another good performance by Fay and lamented the fact that he once again had to call on the freshman reliever so early in a game.

Had Alabama extended the game, star closer Alton Davis II was ready. The hope was to get the sophomore into the contest ahead of the weekend series against Tennessee. "It just kinda got away from us in the middle and the late innings."

Southern Miss (11-6), in its first season under the direction of head coach Christian Ostrander, went with six pitchers in the matchup. The starter, Cole Boswell, went only 1.2 innings. His replacement, Colby Allen, threw 3.1 innings and gave up only one. He shouldered the bulk of the middle innings and earned the win. The late runs in the ninth were surrendered by JB Middleton. He was chased following Guscette's one-out single. "Their stuff was good tonight," said Vaughn. "The second guy they brought in [Allen]... That dude didn't throw a ball over the knees. We look at all the reports, when he's down in the zone, hitters are hitting zero on balls at the bottom of the zone.

[We tried] to get him elevated, but he just didn't get elevated. He just kept doing it... We had some good swings too. [Eblin] had some good swings there that didn't turn into hits, but stung a ball off him. I thought [Lebron] stung a ball off him. They just happened to be right at a guy tonight." There was no panic in the dugout, even down seven runs with only three outs to go. The team kept stringing hits together.

McIntyre and designated hitter Slade Wilks, the man who took Moza yard in the home fifth, each extended their respective hitting streaks to nine games. McIntyre did this all the way back in his first plate appearance, when he won a nine-pitch battle over the freshman Adams with a single. Right fielder Carson Paetow joined the home run parade in the seventh with a two-run, opposite field shot to left center off Zane Probst that stretched the home team’s lead to 9-2 in front of the eighth-largest crowd in venue history.

"It's a great venue for college baseball, and it's exactly what we needed," Vaughn said. "We just haven't seen this yet... 5,000 people here tonight, and they were into it from pitch one. Our guys needed to feel that. I thought they rang the bell pretty good to it. Again, we just were probably two or three plays made short of finding a way to win that thing tonight."

Alabama drew the Volunteers as its first opponent in league play. It’s an anticipated matchup. The Crimson Tide took one from Tennessee’s oft-dominant 2022 team in Knoxville, and the two programs have not met since. However, Tuesday’s performance was ultimately just short of how Vaughn’s squad drew it up going into the first conference weekend with him at the helm.

How It Happened:

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• A five-run ninth, headlined by a bases-clearing triple by Evan Sleight and a home run by Kade Snell, falls just short as the tying run lines out to the infield. 9-7, Southern Miss.

• Southern Miss' Dalton McIntyre hits a one-out double and Slade Wilks draws a two-out walk but neither can make it home. The Golden Eagles still lead by 7 and the Crimson Tide is down to its final three outs. 

• Alabama strands a runner on third base to end the top half of the eighth. The Golden Eagles lead 9-2.

• Southern Miss strikes out to end the seventh inning. 

• Austin Morris is coming into the game in relief of Zane Probst. 

• Southern Miss' Carson Paetow hits a two-run shot to center field to extend the Golden Eagles lead 9-2.  

• Zane Probst is coming into the game in relief of Matthew Heiberger. 

• TJ McCants hits a one-out double, but gets stranded at third base to end the top of the seventh. 

• A botched pickoff attempt by Heiberger sends another Golden Eagles runner home immediately after an RBI single stretches the lead. 7-2 Southern Miss at the end of the sixth.

• A long flyout from Eblin ends the top of the sixth with two runners stranded, but the Crimson Tide draws one closer. Matthew Heiberger is now in to pitch for Alabama.

• Sleight leads off the sixth with a 368-foot home run to the pull side. Mason Swinney on to pinch hit for Mizell in the DH spot. 5-2, USM.

• No more runs in B5 for Southern Miss, but the lead is back to four runs. Alabama must once again overcome that deficit in a road midweek. Up to bat first in the sixth will be Evan Sleight, who singled last time up. Chase Adams is on to pitch for USM.

• Slade Wilks hits a home run 112 mph off the bat to dead center. 5-1, Golden Eagles in B5. Nine game hitting streaks for both McIntyre and Wilks.

• Aidan Moza will pitch for Tyler Fay.

• Alabama gets another first-pitch single from Miller in the fifth, but he's stranded at second when Ian Petrutz strikes out. Home fifth due up. 

• Southern Miss goes down in order for the first time this evening on two groundouts and a fly out. Ian Petrutz makes a SCTop10-esque play in the left field corner to end the fourth. The Golden Eagles lead 4-1. 

• Evan Sleight and Mac Guscette both reach base after hitting singles, but get stranded at first and second. 

• Tyler Fay strikes out a pair and retires the side in B3 with a flyout for a clean inning.

• McCants hits into another double play, emptying the bases, then Petrutz strikes out to end T3. The Eblin blast is all in the frame.

• Bryce Eblin gets Alabama on the board with a leadoff home run to start the third inning. 4-1, Southern Miss.

• Tyler Fay comes into the game for Alabama in relief of Adams and records a strikeout to end the second. 

• Southern Miss' Slade Wilks hits a sacrifice fly to extend the Golden Eagles lead 4-0. 

• Will Hodo draws a two-out walk but gets stranded there after Justin Lebron strikes out to end the top half of the second. Southern Miss leads 3-0. 

• Cody Allen is coming into the game for Southern Miss in relief of Cole Boswell in the top of the second. Alabama has a runner on first with two outs. 

• Adams leaves two on the corners, but early damage has been done. As first innings go, that one was strange. The top half featured a 3-6 double play. The bottom half featured two straight fielders' choices that could have been turned for two, and were not, as well as two walks in a row immediately after.

• Southern Miss loads the bases and then clears them with a Gillespie double. Adams walked two straight with two gone to load the bags. Two gone in B1. 3-0 Golden Eagles.

• Alabama draws two walks in its first turn to the plate, but nothing doing as McCants hits into an unconventional 3-6 double play and Evan Sleight strikes out.

• First pitch happens at 6:05. Right on schedule.

• Alabama lineup: 1. Gage Miller, third base; 2. TJ McCants, center field; 3. Ian Petrutz, left field; 4. Evan Sleight, right field; 5. Coleman Mizell, designated hitter; 6. Mac Guscette, catcher; 7. Will Hodo, first base; 8. Justin Lebron, shortstop; 9. Bryce Eblin, second base; P: Zane Adams, LHP

• Southern Mississippi lineup: 1. Dalton McIntyre, center field; 2. Nick Monistere, third base; 3. Slade Wilks, designated hitter; 4. Billy Butler, left field; 5. Carson Paetow, right field; 6. Davis Gillespie, first base; 7. Seth Smith, second base; 8. Tucker Stockman, catcher; 9. Ozzie Pratt, shortstop; P: Cole Boswell, RHP

• First pitch is set for 6:05 p.m. CT.