Southern Miss Coach Speaks on Crucial Bunt Call and More From Tuesday's Walk-Off Win

HATTIESBURG, Miss. – No. 10 Southern Miss got a dramatic 3-2 win over New Orleans and Pete Taylor Park on Tuesday night to improve its record to 24-9 before taking on the Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns in Lafayette this coming weekend. With the bases loaded in the ninth and the Golden Eagles down to their last strike, senior first baseman Matthew Russo delivered with a walk-off single. It was the fifth walk-off of his collegiate career.

The Golden Eagles ended up with 10 hits on Tuesday, which means they've notched double-digit hits in five of their last six games now. The orchestrator behind the Southern Miss bats, assistant coach Travis Creel, joined SuperTalk Eagle Hour on Wednesday to discuss Tuesday's win.

Eags Win Despite Having Room for Improvement

Given how some of these home midweek games against smaller opponents have gone this year–the Golden Eagles have losses to Nicholls and SELA at The Pete–Southern Miss certainly wasn't worried too much about how it won on Tuesday, despite knowing there's room to improve.

"We'll take it," Creel said of Tuesday's walk-off win. "Obviously, we'd like to score more runs and not give them a two-spot in the first, but after the first, our pitchers really settled in and battled around a lot of traffic. And then the offense found a way to win late, so (I'm) proud of the guys."

Crucial Bunt Call in the Ninth Inning

USM — Matt Bush/Special to the Clarion Ledger / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

"Yeah, I put it on for a couple of reasons," Creel said of Smith's base-hit bunt that got two men on base in the ninth to put pressure on UNO's pitcher. "One, we really hadn't made their third baseman make a play all night, and it was only his seventh start of the season. So the pressure of the game was on, and we wanted to apply some (more) pressure. In my mind, worst-case scenario, we'd have a runner on second with (Kyle) Morrison up to bat.

"I thought it was kind of a win-win. ... Huge play in the game, and it pretty much guaranteed that K-Mo and (Davis Gillespie) would have a chance to win it. It just so happened that Dave drew the walk and Russo got a chance to win it."

You can listen to the entire SuperTalk Eagle Hour segment with Creel below, where he also looks ahead to this weekend's series, and be sure to stay tuned to Southern Miss Golden Eagles On SI for more baseball coverage throughout the week.