Southern Miss baseball beats App State to reach Sun Belt championship after weather delays

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Southern Miss baseball is in the Sun Belt Conference tournament championship for the second year in a row.

The No. 2 seed Golden Eagles (40-18) beat No. 6 Appalachian State 7-5 on Saturday at Riverwalk Stadium in a game that began at 9 a.m. and didn't end until 8:52 p.m. That's because of two multi-hour weather delays that paused the game.

App State (33-21-1) held a 5-2 lead at the first weather delay but then Southern Miss pulled ahead 7-5 before the second delay. There were no runs scored in the final four and a half innings.

It’s the fourth time since 2009 that Southern Miss has won its first three games in a conference tournament. The win also marks the eighth straight season Southern Miss has reached 40 wins, the longest active streak in Division I.

The Golden Eagles will face the winner of No. 4 James Madison versus No. 5 Georgia Southern in the championship on Sunday. Game time was originally 1 p.m. but conference officials were undecided about the start time due to the delays Saturday.

Weather delays stop play twice

After Southern Miss recorded the final out of the second inning, the game went into a 2-hour, 48-minute weather delay beginning at 10:08 a.m. Play resumed at 12:56 p.m.

No changes were made to lineups besides Ben Riley Flowers relieving Sivley.

Then in the bottom of the fifth inning, another weather delay was implemented at 2 p.m. while Southern Miss led 7-5. Teams were sent back to their hotels until play restarted at 7:37 p.m. Both teams made pitching changes with Josh Och throwing for Southern Miss and Jake Beaty in for App State.

Colby Allen made the save, meaning Southern Miss' bullpen has yet to allow an earned run in the conference tournament.

App State, Southern Miss both chase starters early

Kros Sivley made his fourth start of the season, and it did not go well.

The lefty gave Southern Miss two innings while App State raided him for five runs.

It looked like the damage was going to be worse though in the first inning when Sivley tried to pick off a Mountaineer at second base but threw it into the outfield to move the runner to third base. And then Sivley hit Braxton Church to put runners at the corners with one out. But Sivley came around with a strikeout and a lazy fly out to escape the jam.

He then struck out his first two opponents in the second inning, but a two-out double followed by a walk and a Banks Tolley home run made it 5-2.

App State starter Bradley Wilson was yanked in the second inning when the Golden Eagles loaded the bases with no outs. Southern Miss tied the game at 2-2 with a run on a wild pitch and then another scored on a double play.

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Southern Miss punches ahead in fifth inning

The Golden Eagles went scoreless in their first two innings after the first weather delay before ambushing App State for five runs and a 7-5 lead in the fifth inning.

They loaded the bases with no outs for star Slade Wilks, who took the first pitch he saw for a double and two runs. Then, Davis Gillespie drove in a third run with a groundout before Nick Monistere hit a 427-foot, go-ahead, two-run home run off the scoreboard in left field.

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: Southern Miss beats App State to return to Sun Belt championship game