Baseball: Owls routed by Southern Miss 12-3 in C-USA tournament final

Eight of the 15 runs in the game came off of a home run

Photo by Max Jackson

Matt Brown, Contributing Writer
May 27, 2018

FAU Baseball allowed Southern Miss to hit two home runs in the first two innings to fall behind 4-0 early and eventually fell 12-3.

No 3. FAU (40-17-1) fails to win their first ever C-USA tournament championship game, and first conference tournament title since winning the Sun Belt conference tournament in 2013, their last year before joining C-USA.

No.1 Southern Miss (43-16) wins their fourth C-USA tournament championship and second in three years. They receive Conference USA’s automatic bid to the regionals starting on Friday June 4.

Southern Miss got out to an early 4-0 lead after hitting two separate two run home runs in the first and second inning off FAU starting pitcher Nick Prather.

Mark Nowatnick was then sent out in relief for the Owls where he didn’t allow any hits until the fifth inning. In that fifth inning though he allowed three straight singles with the final one putting another man on the board to extend the Golden Eagles lead to five.

FAU failed to threaten on offense with leadoff hitters all reaching base in the third, fourth, and fifth inning but were left stranded on base after the remaining batters all went down in order.

Owls second baseman Richie Nizza reached first in the seventh after being hit by a pitch, the fourth time in five innings FAU’s leadoff batter reached base.

Things were different in this inning though when Nizza scored after first baseman Gunnar Lambert’s hit the first pitch he saw over the right field fence for a three-run shot to cut the Golden Eagles lead to two, 5-3.

That was as close as FAU got after Southern Miss scored seven runs in the final two innings to cruise to a 12-3 victory.

Prather allowed four runs and four hits in 1.1 innings to fall to 0-3 for the season.

Frank was the lone Owl to get multiple hits, going 2-for-5 with a run scored.

Lambert was responsible for all three of FAU’s runs with his homer in the seventh.

Frank, Lambert, left fielder Eric Rivera, designated hitter Jared DeSantolo, and pitcher Blake Sanderson each earned All-Tournament honors for the Owls.

The Owls must now wait to see if they are one of 33 teams to receive an at large bid to the NCAA regionals tomorrow at 12.p.m Est on ESPNU.  

Matt Brown is a contributing writer with the University Press. For information regarding this or other stories, email [email protected] or tweet him @mattyb407.