STATESBORO, Ga. – Dylan Hardy and Brendan Donovan each had two home runs and Randy Bell threw seven and two-thirds strong innings in leading South Alabama to a 9-1 win over Troy here Friday in the opening quarterfinal of the Sun Belt Conference Baseball Championship at J.I. Clements Stadium.
Hardy, who had one homer in his two-year career entering Friday’s game, laced a three-run homer in the fourth inning that gave USA (37-19) a 5-0 lead. The sophomore left fielder then added a solo shot in the sixth during a two-run inning that cemented the Jaguars’ berth in Saturday’s semifinals.
Donovan’s first inning two-run shot came off Troy starter Andrew Crane (6-2), who had not given up a run in a Sun Belt record 40 consecutive innings, and provided an early 2-0 lead. He later added an insurance two-run homer in the eighth inning for the game’s final two runs.
Bell, meanwhile, checked the Trojans (31-25) on seven hits and had a shutout going until the eighth inning when Troy’s Chase Smartt delivered a two-out RBI single. The senior right-hander improved to 6-3 while striking out eight in a 120-pitch performance.
Fourth-seeded South Alabama advances to Saturday’s 3 p.m. ET semifinal against the winner of the UTA-Arkansas State game. The Trojans were eliminated from the tournament, which was revised to a single-elimination format after the tournament’s first two days were rained out, with the loss.
Hardy had three extra-base hits in the game, continuing a hot streak that included seven hits in a regular-season-ending series against Troy. His leadoff double was followed two batters later by Donovan unloading on the first pitch from Crane for his eighth homer of the year and an early 2-0 lead.
That came only minutes after Bell (6-3) had worked out of trouble in the first inning. Troy had loaded the bases with one out on a leadoff single by Matt Sanders, a walk and a hit batsman, but Bell got Mason Rogers to hit into an inning-ending double play.
Bell retired the next eight batters before the Trojans got a pair of hits in both the fourth and sixth innings, but he stranded runners in scoring position in each of those innings. He got two outs in the eighth after a leadoff walk to Brandon Lockridge, before Rogers and Smartt had back-to-back singles to plate Troy’s only run.
Reliever Avery Geyer retired four of the five batters he faced including strikeouts to end the eighth and ninth innings.
Hunter Stokes and backup catcher Carter Perkins, replacing injured regular Jared Barnes, had back-to-back singles in the fourth inning, and Hardy hit the first pitch from Trojan reliever Austin Crook over the left-field wall for the 5-0 lead.
Hardy added a two-out solo homer in the sixth, and Colton Thomas followed with a single and eventually scored on a wild pitch. Thomas also singled with one out in the eighth and Donovan followed with his ninth homer of the season for the final scoring.