(photo courtesy of Southern Miss Athletics)
One of the first scores that jumped off Friday’s Opening Day page was Southern Miss’ 11-0 win over No. 15 Mississippi State.
Hattiesburg was hopping all weekend as the Golden Eagles went on to sweep the series against the Bulldogs, who swept two games from Southern Miss in the same park in the Regionals last year. In fact, the Golden Eagles never trailed at any point during the weekend in making a powerful statement coming off a 50-win season a year ago.
Defense was the first thing coach Scott Berry highlighted Sunday night, a few hours after Southern Miss captured a 5-2 win.
“We just never really committed those errors that allowed for any momentum change,” Berry said.
Nick Sandlin, a brilliant reliever his first two years at Southern Miss (10-2, 8 saves last year, 20 career saves), set the tone for the weekend with a dominant start Friday night: seven scoreless innings, four hits and nine strikeouts. And the offense, according to Berry, had some “really good at-bats against [Konnor] Pilkington and run that pitch count up.” The Golden Eagles scored twice off the MSU ace in four innings and scored in each of their last five at-bats.
“I think it’s one game, and you move on,” Berry said of the big win Friday. “It’s an important game because it’s a momentum game that pushes you into the next day.”
Southern Miss ended up going to its bullpen a little earlier than anticipated on Saturday and Sunday, but it was up to the task. On Sunday, five relievers limited the Bulldogs to two hits over 6.1 innings.
The series attracted nearly 15,000 fans and was sold out several weeks in advance.
“That says a lot for our program and our fan base,” Berry said.
According to Berry, conversations for the series began shortly after the Bulldogs named Andy Cannizaro head coach in late 2016. While some programs look to take it easy the first weekend, Berry jumped at the chance to open with an in-state powerhouse.
“I think we welcome the opportunity,” he said. “Our program has fought hard to try to establish itself as worthy of national attention the last few years.”
Next year, the series shifts to the new Dudy Noble Field in Starkville the second weekend of the season.
Notre Dame starts with a bang (photo courtesy of Fighting Irish Media)
Notre Dame was picked by its league’s coaches to finish near the bottom of the powerful ACC. Although it’s just one weekend, there’s a lot to like about what the Fighting Irish achieved over three days at Alex Box Stadium.
The Irish won its road series against No. 11 LSU and nearly walked away with a sweep.
After dropping the first game 7-6 – a game in which it led 6-0 only to see the Tigers come to life with four in the sixth and three in the eighth – Notre Dame won 10-5 and 11-3 to claim the series.
“I thought we played really well,” Fighting Irish coach Mik Aoki said. “Our young guys did a great job of handling what is, or is certainly among, the biggest stages in college baseball. Our veterans played like veterans, and they’re good players.”
One of those veterans is junior second baseman Nick Podkul, who was a thorn in the Tigers’ side all weekend. Podkul went 5 for 9 and drew five walks and was hit by two pitches, which is nothing new – he entered the season with 23 HBP (he even got hit by 11 pitches in summer ball after his freshman season – for an OBA of .750 for the weekend.
Another is right fielder Eric Gilgenbach, who entered the season with three career homers (all in one weekend in 2017) and hit three homers (including two Sunday) with nine RBI against LSU.
“He has power,” Aoki said. “He didn’t try to force it and let it happen. If he makes enough solid contact, he’ll get his share of home runs.”
In all, the Fighting Irish racked up better than 10 hits (34 total) in each of the three games and scored 27 runs. Last year, the Irish averaged a little more than four runs a game.
“We have a very solid core of veteran position players in [Cole] Daily, [Jake] Johnson, Podkul, [Matt] Vierling and Gilgenbach,” Aoki said. “They’re good players who value the team’s success over their personal agendas. They’ve been, along with guys like [Scott] Tully and [Charlie] Vorsheck, great leaders that have shown our club that when individuals are selfless, the team’s – and ironically their own – fortunes rise together. A rising tide lifts all boats.”
Stanford Sweeps Fullerton (photo courtesy of Stanford Athletic Communications)
Like Southern Miss, Stanford exacted a bit of revenge against the team that ended its season – and ultimately the career of longtime skipper Mark Marquess – in 2017. The Cardinal swept Cal State Fullerton to kick off the David Esquer era.
Probably the biggest news for the Cardinal was the return of Tristan Beck, who made his first start in 630 days. Beck was the third freshman pitcher (Mike Mussina/Cal Quantrill) to start on Opening Day in nearly 30 years when he did that in 2016 (against Cal State Fullerton). He went 6-5 with a 2.48 ERA as a freshman before going down with an arm injury.
He returned Friday night and was superb, allowing four hits, one earned run and striking out five. Beck faced off against Colton Eastman, who missed much of 2017 with arm issues before coming on strong in the postseason for the Titans.
Niko Hoerner (.545/.909 SLG) and Brandon Wulff (.500) paced the offense for the Cardinal.
Also of note from the opening weekend…
- Santa Clara’s Jake Brodt hit not one, but two grand slams in the same inning as the Broncos beat Boston College 20-9. Brodt finished 3 for 5 with three homers and 10 RBI, and according to the NCAA is the seventh player to hit two grand slams in an inning since 1957.
- Oregon State’s Trevor Larnach went 8 for 9 (.889) with two doubles and homers in each of the Beavers’ three wins to open the season. The weekend also featured the return of Luke Heimlich, who left the team last year before the College World Series because of a past sexual assault crime.
- While sophomore Sean Mooney grabs a lot of the attention, John’s has a stable of arms and returns most of its pitching from last year’s 42-win and 3.11 ERA team. The Red Storm started 2018 in impressive fashion by yielding only 14 hits and two earned runs in a weekend sweep at Campbell. Kevin Magee (4-1, 2.45 last year) allowed two hits and struck out 11 in a six-inning start, and Michael LoPresti (6-1, 4.66 ERA last year) and Mooney (8-2, 1.71 ERA last year) combined to allow six hits and strike out 13 in 11 innings. St. John’s visits North Carolina, a team it beat 5-4 last year, before playing in the Penn State Tournament at the Team USA Baseball complex in Cary, N.C., over the weekend.
- Speaking of Penn State, the Nittany Lions earned a hard-fought road sweep at Elon – a terrific start for a team that went 18-37 overall and 6-21 on the road last year. Included in the weekend were a pair of one-run wins. Penn State used big innings to take the final two games, scoring seven runs in an inning of an 8-6 win Saturday and all three of its runs in the same inning of a 3-2 win Sunday.
- Grand Canyon opened its beautiful new stadium – Brazell Field at GCU Ballpark – Friday and lost in a 3-2 nail-biter to TCU. Sunday’s game was even more thrilling, as the Frogs scored twice in the 12th to take an 8-6 lead, only to have the Lopes score three in the bottom of the 12th (the last on an error) to get their first win in their new digs.
- Clemson and William & Mary played three one-runners, with the Tigers sweeping the Tribe. In the opener, Clemson scored three times in the bottom of the ninth to force extras and won 5-4 in 10 innings. It then won 7-6 and 2-1 to close the weekend. The Tribe may have had the most impressive weekend for a team that didn’t get their first win.
- Kentucky, a Top-10 team in all the major polls, won four games in Spartanburg, C., beating USC Upstate (twice), Wofford and Evansville. Tristan Pompey went 8 for 17 and slugged .824 as the Wildcats racked up 30 runs to help out the likes of ace Sean Hjelle (6 IP, 1 ER) and Justin Lewis (6 IP, 0 R, 2 H, 9 K).
- Coastal Carolina went 3-0 at its tournament, including 10th-inning wins over Oklahoma and Kansas State – both by scores of 4-3. On Saturday, Cory Wood delivered the game winning hit to beat the Sooners, and on Sunday, Wood scored the game-winner on Kevin Woodall Jr.’s single. Coastal opened by hammering Virginia Tech 17-2 as Woodall Jr. had three hits, including a homer, and six RBI.
- Butler picked up four wins at UNCW’s tournament, including a 5-2 win over the host Seahawks when Gerhig Parker had a double, homer and two RBI to support a solid start from Garrett Christman. The Bulldogs, who finished 31-20 (21-12 on the road/neutral site) in 2017, also picked up two wins over Lehigh and one over Eastern Kentucky.
- Sam Houston State took two of three from Kent State, winning the final two after the Golden Flashes’ Josh Hollander ripped a two-strike, two-out grand slam in the top of the ninth for the win. Things got testy on Sunday as both teams’ coaches had to be separated by umpires during a heated argument.
- Pitching mostly was on display in Austin, where Texas took two of three from Louisiana in a series that totaled 14 runs – five coming in the ninth inning of Game 2. Nolan Kingham tossed eight scoreless innings with three hits and 10 strikeouts in the opener before the Longhorns scored three times, the game-winner coming on Austin Todd’s two-run homer. In the finale, Brock Batty came up big with six innings and one earned run as the Ragin’ Cajuns won 2-1.
- Wichita State scored in double figures in three straight wins at McNeese, getting a Greyson Jenista homer and Jordan Boyer game-winning single in the final two innings to win 11-10 Sunday. Alec Bohm slugged 1.091 and Jenista slugged 1.000 over the three games.
- Saint Mary’s picked up a nice series win against Long Beach State in a series dominated by pitching. Ty Madrigal, the younger brother of Oregon State star Nick Madrigal, made two appearances in relief and allowed two hits in four scoreless innings to back starters Ken Waldichuk, Nick Frank and Kevin Milam, all of whom tossed at least five innings with two earned runs or less.
- Fresno State also had a big weekend, sweeping four games from Michigan State – three of the games were one-run wins. The Bulldogs’ starting pitchers – Ryan Jensen, Oscar Carvajal, Edgar Gonzalez and Jaime Arias – combined to throw 24 innings with 15 hits, three earned runs and 23 strikeouts.
- A pair of coaches announced right before the season that the 2018 season will be their last. Mike Gillespie, a Hall of Famer who won a national title at USC and a two-time National Coach of the Year (1998, 2014), will step aside after 11 years leading UC Irvine. In 10 years, Gillespie has guided the Eaters to five Regionals, two Super Regionals and one College World Series (2014). Former UC Irvine shortstop and current associate head coach Ben Orloff will take over the program. And Davidson announced that Dick Cooke will become an associate athletic director after leading the Wildcats for his 28th season. Cooke led Davidson on a magical run to the Super Regionals last year, a run that has led to a burst in fundraising to push the number of scholarships from three and change to more than seven and counting. Associate head coach Rucker Taylor will be the next coach. These retirements follow Miami’s Jim Morris, who previously announced 2018 will be his swan song.
- Kudos to UCF for scheduling a strong field for its season-opening tournament. Virginia and Rice both went 2-1, with the Cavaliers winning the head-to-head matchup. The host Knights and Samford both were 1-2.
- Weather played havoc with several schedules this weekend. Purdue and Western Michigan were unable to fly to the Lone Star State on Thursday as fog cancelled numerous flights out of Midway Airport in Chicago. The Boilermakers were scheduled to play at Baylor and the Broncos were headed to Houston Baptist. Purdue and WMU played on Saturday and Sunday in Emerson, , with the Boilermakers sweeping a three-game set. HBU traveled to Baylor, with the Bears taking two of three. Illinois also had its flight cancelled to Texas. The Illini were supposed to play in Lamar’s tournament. Illinois headed to St. Louis to face Austin Peay and South Dakota State. Weather forced the cancellation of the Govs’ series with UMES and the Jackrabbits’ series at Mississippi Valley State. APSU beat SDSU twice and Illinois once. The Illini pulled out a win over the Jackrabbits.