No. 11 Southern Miss Falls to No. 6 Mississippi State in 'Unacceptable Fashion'

Heading into Tuesday night's massive midweek matchup between No. 11 Southern Miss and No. 6 Mississippi State in Starkville, Golden Eagles head coach Christian Ostrander anticipated the Bulldogs presenting an even bigger challenge for his team than they did in Hattiesburg on March 3. The Golden Eagles won a 7-6 thriller at Pete Taylor Park, but now, they had to face a Bulldogs ballclub that came into Tuesday night's game 16-0 at Dudy Noble Field.

Southern Miss didn't just get beaten by Mississippi State on Tuesday; it got flat-out embarrassed in a 12-0 shutout loss that only lasted seven innings. The Golden Eagles gave up nine of those 12 runs by the third inning, essentially putting the game away early. With the loss, Southern Miss fell to 19-6, and Mississippi State improved to 21-4.

How It Happened

As well as Southern Miss junior RHP Thomas Crabtree fared in his start against Ole Miss through three innings at home two weeks ago, he wasn't able to replicate that success against Mississippi State on the road. Before you could blink, the Bulldogs had the bases loaded in the bottom of the first inning with no outs. Crabtree was able to register one strikeout, but his night was finished after one-third of the first inning.

To be fair to Crabtree, the entire Golden Eagles pitching staff got picked on during Tuesday night's run-rule loss. He just happened to be the one to get the initial wave of it. The Bulldogs' offense came into the game hot after their series win over Vanderbilt, and that momentum carried over in a big way.

"Ran into a buzzsaw," head coach Christian Ostrander said in his postgame media availability. "They earned it early. We didn't execute some pitches early. They kinda singled us to death and then got some big hits later in the game when the opportunity arose. We just didn't pitch it well enough to have a chance against that offense."

Despite having seven hits on the night, the Golden Eagles were unable to scratch across any runs. Senior outfielder Joey Urban was the only Southern Miss player to register more than one hit (2).

After being hit around the knee area by a pitch early on, senior first baseman Matthew Russo eventually had to be taken out of the game, with junior Seth Smith taking his spot at first base and sophomore Ty Long filling in at shortstop. Hopefully, it's not something that will linger for Russo, as Southern Miss is already down another senior in Ben Higdon, who has been dealing with a hamstring issue.

Coach Oz Deems Loss as "Unacceptable"

USM — Lauren Witte/Clarion Ledger / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

"It's unacceptable," Coach Oz said of his team's performance. "We don't like getting embarrassed. We don't like getting beat in that fashion. We can handle getting beat, we just weren't competitive enough on both sides, and we couldn't stop their momentum."

Despite being embarrassed, Coach Oz stressed that his team must learn a valuable lesson from this disappointing experience so

"You gotta take something away from this," Coach Oz said. "My message to them was, 'Be upset with this and vow that we won't let this happen again.' First time this year that we've been uncompetitive in a ballgame. So hopefully the lesson they'll learn is next time we're not gonna let that happen, and we're gonna find a way to stop it and move forward."

What's Next

The Golden Eagles won't have long to dwell on this loss, as they'll host Appalachian State at Pete Taylor Park in Hattiesburg this coming weekend.

As disappointing and embarrassing as Tuesday night was, the best way to get that bad taste out of their mouths is to bounce back into the win column and string together back-to-back Sun Belt Series wins. Stay tuned to Southern Miss Golden Eagles On SI for more baseball coverage the rest of this week and into the weekend.