Midweek Letdown: No. 8 Southern Miss Falls to Southeastern Louisiana at Home

HATTIESBURG, Miss. – There was a lot of optimism for a Southern Miss offensive revival after Sunday's blowout win over Appalachian State, which saw the Golden Eagles plate 13 runs. However, that optimism was short-lived, as Southern Miss, just two days later, dropped a midweek game to Southeastern Louisiana at Pete Taylor Park on Tuesday night, 5-1.

Just a day after being moved up from No. 11 to No. 8 in D1Baseball's Top-25 Rankings, the Golden Eagles just didn't bring their best stuff on either side of the ball on Tuesday. With the loss, Southern Miss dropped to 21-8 on the year and 6-6 over its last 12 games. With the win, which was its fourth in a row, SELA improved to 17-12.

Eags On Wrong Side of Career Pitching Night

For the first three innings, tonight's game was a close pitching duel between USM senior LHP Kros Sivley and SELA sophomore RHP Luke Lirette, as neither pitcher gave up a run to that point. However, in the top of the fourth inning, Brody Capps gave the Lions the lead with a two-run homer on Sivley. Overall, Sivley ended up with two strikeouts while giving up four hits and four runs in three innings of work.

On the other side, Lirette had a career night, finishing with seven strikeouts, five hits, and no runs given up in 6.2 innings. He got up to a career-high 104 pitches thrown before exiting the game in the seventh inning. Despite their team being on the wrong end of such a great performance, Golden Eagle fans at The Pete gave Lirette a classy standing ovation as he left the mound.

Eags Hitting Struggles Resurface

Aside from one lone run scored in the bottom of the eighth, the USM bats were quiet on this night, at least when it came time to drive runs in. The Golden Eagles had seven hits but left 10 runners on base. To the Lions' credit, though, they made big play after big play to ensure that USM didn't gain any momentum. SELA left fielder Justin Williams recorded several web gems on the night, including robbing what would've been a two-run homer from Kyle Morrison in the bottom of the eighth.

Morrison and Drey Barrett led the Golden Eagles with two hits each. Overall, Southern Miss went 7-34 at the plate, but if you take out Morrison and Barrett's production, the other seven batters in the lineup went 3-26. There will be a lot for head coach Christian Ostrander and his staff to work through with the guys heading into the weekend.

Eags Hit the Road

Next up, the Golden Eagles will catch an early flight on Wednesday to prepare for their Sun Belt series against Old Dominion in Norfolk, Virginia. The series will start on Thursday night because of Easter being this weekend. Stay tuned to Southern Miss Golden Eagles On SI for more baseball coverage throughout the week as the Golden Eagles look to climb back into the win column.