What Southern Miss, App State baseball did to pass time in Sun Belt tournament weather delays
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Southern Miss baseball is making its second consecutive appearance in the Sun Belt Conference tournament championship game, but it had to wait about 12 hours to celebrate its semifinal win.
That’s because of two separate weather delays on Saturday that totaled 8 hours and 24 minutes before No. 2 seed Southern Miss beat No. 6 Appalachian State 7-5. First pitch was at 9:07 a.m. and the final out was recorded at 8:52 p.m.
The first delay lasted for 2 hours and 47 minutes, while the second one was for 5 hours and 37 minutes. Both teams were sent back to their hotels during the second delay. Southern Miss led 7-5 at the time.
The Golden Eagles (40-18) and Mountaineers (33-21-1) took different approaches to killing the time.
How Southern Miss got through the weather delays
For Southern Miss, it took a more relaxed approach.
“We were really just chilling, just hanging out together and laughing and trying to stay loose,” Nick Monistere said, who hit the go-ahead, two-run home run in the fifth inning.
First-year coach Christian Ostrander said he rested in his hotel room and might’ve even fallen asleep at one point.
“I dozed off,” he said. “I ain’t going to lie to you. I went up in my room, visited with my wife and drank a few waters or whatever and dozed off.
“... It didn’t feel like a great nap, so I was just resting I think.”
When play resumed, Southern Miss inserted freshman pitcher Josh Och, who tossed 3.1 scoreless innings. It was the longest outing of his career, and he hasn’t allowed a run in eight straight innings to dip his ERA to 1.23. He said he learned just before they were departing the hotel to return to Riverwalk Stadium that he was going to pitch and is glad the coaching staff didn’t tell him earlier.
“Then I didn’t have to think about it too long,” Och said. “I didn’t have to dwell on it. I got to relax and hydrate and everything.”
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How App State got through the weather delays
Mountaineers coach Kermit Smith said their strategy rooted from a lesson in last season’s conference tournament.
Southern Miss and App State faced each other in the semifinals that year, too. App State won the first game, which forced a doubleheader to be played later that day. But then Southern Miss run-ruled App State a few hours later on the way to winning the conference championship.
Smith didn’t want his players to nap.
“And then in between that game (last season) we went back to the hotel and probably rested a little bit too much so we kind of wanted to learn from our own mistakes in that,” he said.
Smith said his team hung out in the team meeting room and hotel lobby. Card games were played, and at one point he picked up a sub sandwich.
Southern Miss will play Georgia Southern in championship game
Southern Miss will play No. 5 seed Georgia Southern (33-25) after it beat No. 4 seed James Madison 7-1 in the other semifinal late Saturday. Game time is 1 p.m. and will be streamed on ESPN+.
Sam Sklar is the Southern Miss beat reporter for the Hattiesburg American. Email him at ssklar@hattiesb.gannett.com and follow him on X @sklarsam_.
This article originally appeared on Hattiesburg American: What Southern Miss did to pass time in Sun Belt tournament weather delays
