BRACKET | CHAMPIONSHIP CENTRAL
MONTGOMERY, Ala. – After remaining undefeated on semifinal Saturday, Southern Miss and Georgia Southern advanced to the championship final at the 2024 Guardian Credit Union Sun Belt Conference Baseball Championship presented by Troy University in Montgomery, Ala.
Second-seeded Southern Miss fought through two weather delays that totaled over eight hours and used a five-run fifth inning to take a 7-5 victory over App State in Saturday’s first semifinal game. Fifth-seeded Georgia Southern then played late into the night and got a trio of inning-leadoff homers and a complete-game pitching performance from senior lefthander Mitchell Gross on the way to a 7-1 win over James Madison in the second semifinal.
The Golden Eagles (40-18) and the Eagles (33-25) meet for the tournament title and the league’s automatic berth into the NCAA Championships at 1 p.m. CT on Sunday at Riverwalk Stadium.
Georgia Southern took 2-of-3 from Southern Miss in Statesboro in the regular-season series.
GAME 13 – No. 2 seed Southern Miss def. No. 6 seed App State, 7-5
Slade Wilks and Nick Monistere drove in four runs in a five-run fifth inning, and relief pitchers Josh Och and Colby Allen threw five innings of shutout ball after a long weather delay to propel second-seeded Southern Miss to a 7-5 win over App State.
The scheduled 9 a.m. first semifinal took 11 hours and 49 minutes to complete with two weather delays totaling eight hours and 23 minutes. It was not finished until 8:56 p.m. when Allen worked out of a bases-loaded situation in the bottom of the ninth inning with a clinching strikeout for his sixth save.
The sixth-seeded Mountaineers took a 2-0 lead in the first inning with Banks Tolley’s RBI ground ball scoring Austin St. Laurent, and CJ Boyd’s double plating Drew Holderbach. After the Golden Eagles scored two runs without a hit in the second inning – using three walks and a hit batsman – App State put a pair of runners on base with two outs before Tolley lifted his 26
th home run of the year over the left-field wall for a 5-2 lead. With the blast, Toley became the single-season RBI record holder with 77.
App State reliever Trey Tujetsch faced one over the minimum over three innings after the first 2:47 weather delay before running into trouble in the fifth. Gabe Broadus, Dalton McIntyre and Ozzie Pratt strung together three singles to start the inning before Wilks laced a two-run double into the left-centerfield gap.
One batter later after Davis Gillespie’s ground ball RBI made it a 5-4 game, Monistere unloaded a mammoth 427-foot home run off the Riverwalk Stadium scoreboard for his 10
th of the season and a 7-5 Golden Eagle lead. Four batters later with one out in the bottom of the fifth, lightning again cleared the field and the stadium and created a 6:36 delay before play resumed. When it did, Och kept the Mountaineers in check, giving up a single to Adam Quintero before retiring 10 of the next 11 hitters he faced.
Allen sealed the victory with a pair of strikeouts to send Southern Miss back to the title game.
GAME 14 – No. 5 seed Georgia Southern def. No. 4 seed James Madison, 7-1
Georgia Southern got leadoff home runs from Josh Tate, T.J. McKenzie and Jarrett Brown as part of an 11-hit attack in the first six innings. The fifth-seeded Eagles used a 3-0 first-inning showing enroute to a 7-1 win over James Madison in Saturday’s second semifinal.
Senior lefthander Mitchell Gross had the longest outing of his career, the first complete-game pitching performance of the tournament and only the second complete game of the season for the Eagles, who have now reached the championship game in six of the last eight Sun Belt tournaments.
The second semifinal did not begin until 9:48 p.m., but Georgia Southern showed no ill effects of the delays. Tate nailed the game’s first pitch over the left-center wall for the first of his three hits.
Sean Smith and Kent Schmidt followed with a double and a single before Brown’s RBI single plated Smith for a 2-0 lead, and Schmidt scored on an infield ground ball to make it 3-0. Brown also singled in the third inning and scored on Sean White’s infield grounder.
McKenzie drilled an 0-1 pitch off the batter’s eye in center field to lead off the fourth and make it 5-0, and Brown followed one inning later with a leadoff homer for his third hit of the game.
Meanwhile, Gross took a perfect game into the fourth, retiring the first 11 batters he faced before Mike Mancini had a two-out bunt single for James Madison. Gross then picked off Mancini and scattered six hits over the final five frames before a game-ending double play. He finished with no earned runs and five strikeouts with no walks in a 118-pitch performance.
The Dukes got their only run when Mason Dunaway reached on an error to lead off the sixth, Kyle Langley singled him up and Fenwick Trimble’s ground ball scored Dunaway. Gross came back to retire seven of JMU’s next eight batters entering the ninth.
CHAMPIONSHIP SCHEDULE
Tuesday, May 21
Game 1 – No. 7 seed Coastal Carolina def. No. 10 seed Georgia State, 5-1
Game 2 – No. 8 seed Old Dominion def. No. 9 seed South Alabama, 3-2
Wednesday, May 22
Game 3 – No. 3 seed Troy def. No. 6 seed App State, 6-5
Game 4 – No. 2 seed Southern Miss def. No. 7 seed Coastal Carolina, 5-0
Game 5 – No. 8 seed Old Dominion def. No. 1 seed Louisiana, 7-3
Game 6 – No. 5 seed Georgia Southern def. No. 4 seed James Madison, 12-4
Thursday, May 23
Game 7 – No. 6 seed App State def. No. 7 seed Coastal Carolina, 6-3
Game 8 – No. 4 seed James Madison def. No. 1 seed Louisiana, 10-9
Game 9 – No. 2 seed Southern Miss def. No. 3 seed Troy, 6-5
Game 10 – No. 5 seed Georgia Southern def. No. 8 seed Old Dominion, 8-6
Friday, May 24
Game 11 –No. 6 seed App State def. No. 3 seed Troy, 10-6
Game 12 – No. 4 seed James Madison def. No. 8 seed Old Dominion, 15-5
Saturday, May 25
Game 13 – No. 2 seed Southern Miss def. No. 6 seed App State, 7-5
Game 14 – No. 5 seed Georgia Southern vs. No. 4 seed James Madison, 12:30 p.m. CT
Sunday, May 26
Championship Game – No. 2 seed Southern Miss vs. No. 5 seed Georgia Southern, 1:00 p.m. CT