BRACKET | CHAMPIONSHIP CENTRAL
 
MONTGOMERY, Ala. – Back to back, despite the jacks. Southern Miss overcame a tournament record six home runs by Georgia Southern, rallying with a five-run ninth inning to take a 14-11 win over the Eagles on Sunday in the championship game of the Guardian Credit Union Sun Belt Conference Baseball Championship presented by Troy University.
 
The second-seeded Golden Eagles (41-18) won the tournament title for the second straight year and claimed the Sun Belt’s automatic berth in the NCAA Division I Baseball Championships. The NCAA bracket will be revealed at 11 a.m. CT Monday on a nationally-televised ESPN2 broadcast.
 
Southern Miss watched a three-run first-inning lead vanish against the home-run performance of the fifth-seeded Eagles (33-26). Georgia Southern, which has made the championship game six times in the last eight tournaments, banged out six home runs, breaking the tournament record of five set on eight previous occasions. Three of those home runs came in the first inning for a 4-3 lead in what became a back-and-forth battle at Riverwalk Stadium and became the highest-scoring championship game since a 2002 20-9 title-game win by New Mexico State over South Alabama in Mobile, Ala.
 
Davis Gillespie gave Southern Miss an early 3-0 lead off Georgia Southern starter Ben Johnson with a 407-foot three-run homer to left-center in the bottom of the first, but Georgia Southern came right back when Sean Smith started the Eagles’ record homer barrage with a one-out shot. Two batters later after a Kent Schmidt single, Jarrett Brown slammed his first of two homers over the left-field wall to tie game game, and one batter later Sean White gave Georgia Southern the lead with the third homer of the inning, a 404-foot shot to center field to chase Golden Eagle starter Cole Boswell.
 
Blancato made it 6-3 Eagles with a two-run homer in the third inning, but Southern Miss plated a run on an infield ground ball in the fourth and got back-to-back RBI singles from McIntyre and Pratt in the fifth to tie the game for the second time.
Georgia Southern reclaimed the lead with two runs on only one hit in the fifth, one scoring on Sean White’s squeeze bunt, but the Golden Eagles came back in the seventh with three straight hits as part of their 18-hit attack. A double by pinch hitter Braden Luke and singles by Lawson Odom and Broadus scored one, and Slade Wilks continued a 32-game hitting streak with a two-out, two-run single for a 9-8 advantage.
 
Georgia Southern wasn’t finished, with Brown leading off the bottom of the seventh with his second homer, and after White’s one-out single McKenzie lifted the sixth and final home run to give the Eagles an 11-9 advantage. Reliever Jacob Phillips retired the Golden Eagles in order in the eighth before Southern Miss’ game-winning four-hit, five-run ninth-inning rally. Southern Miss erupted for three straight hits from Tucker Stockman, Gabe Broadus and Dalton McIntyre to start the ninth, with McIntyre’s fourth hit plating Stockman to make it a one-run game.
 
Ozzie Pratt then reached on an error on Georgia Southern’s drawn-in infield, scoring Broadus and McIntyre, and three batters later Matthew Russo had his third hit of the game, a two-run single that provided the Golden Eagles with insurance runs.
 
Reliever Colby Allen, named the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player, recorded three outs in the bottom of the ninth sandwiched around Sam Blancato of Georgia Southern’s one-out single – his eighth hit of the tournament. Allen (9-2) got two ground balls to end it and record his second win of the tournament after getting a save in Saturday night’s 7-5 win over Appalachian State.
 
Most Outstanding Player
Colby Allen, Southern Miss
 
All-Tournament Team
Billy Oldham, Southern Miss
Nick Monistere, Southern Miss
Slade Wilks, Southern Miss
Mitchell Gross, Georgia Southern
Sam Blancato, Georgia Southern
Jarrett Brown, Georgia Southern
T.J. McKenzie, Georgia Southern
Mike Mancini, James Madison
Brendan O’Donnell, James Madison
Banks Tolley, App State
CJ Boyd, App State
Maverick Stallings, Old Dominion
Jacob Gomez, Old Dominion
 
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 def. No. 4 seed James Madison, 7-1
 
Sunday, May 26
Championship Game – No. 2 seed Southern Miss def. No. 5 seed Georgia Southern, 14-11