HATTIESBURG, Miss. — WKU Baseball held on to an early lead with timely pitching to defeat No. 13 Southern Miss by a score of 7-1 on Saturday afternoon. Starter Ryan Thurston spun six innings of one-run ball with seven strikeouts and zero extra-base hits allowed.
For the second straight game, Steven Kraft led off with a single on the first pitch. He would come around to score in the first inning when Richard Constantine lifted a two-out single to right field, giving the Hilltoppers (15-15, 5-6) a 1-0 lead.
In the third, Nick Brunson got things started with a double to right-center, then a walk to Kraft and a Jacob Rhinesmith single loaded the bases for Colie Currie. The senior ripped a single down the right-field line to score a pair, his 17th and 18th RBI of the year.
With runners on the corners, Constantine brought home Rhinesmith when he reached on an error by the first baseman. After a Tyler Robertson fly ball moved Currie to third, Luke Brown lined a two-out single to left field to push the WKU lead to 5-0.
The following inning, Brunson led off with his second hit of the game - a single through the left side - and came home two batters later when Rhinesmith smacked a homerun over the right-field wall.
It was the 10th long ball of the year for the JuCo transfer from Indian Hills Community College, as he became only the second player in Division I this season (Bren Spillane of Illinois, 14-12) to reach double-digit homeruns and stolen bases (10).
With a 7-0 lead, Thurston kept rolling. Although he had only one 1-2-3 frame, he halted every Southern Miss (21-9, 7-3) opportunity to inch closer as the game went on.
Perhaps the hosts' best chance came in the bottom of the fifth, when three consecutive two-out singles loaded the bases for the dangerous Matt Wallner.
Wallner entered the game with three grand slams over the past two weeks, but after a quick chat with head coach John Pawlowski, Thurston went right after the slugger and struck him out swinging on high heat.
The Golden Eagles did push a run across in the sixth, but were unable to score any more, with Thurston stranding runners on the corners.
That would be the final work for Thurston, as the senior exited after 121 pitches - including 68 for strikes. He walked four and allowed six singles, but induced two 4-6-3 ground-ball double plays.
With seven strikeouts, Thurston reached 269 for his career on The Hill. The lefty passed Ryan Hutchinson (264, 1998-2001) for second all-time in program history. The leader, Matt Ridings, is all-but-unreachable for Thurston, as he amassed 354 for the Hilltoppers from 2007-10.
From the bullpen, righty Conner Boyd got the first out of the seventh inning then gave way to lefty Austin Tibbs.
Tibbs completed the final 2.2 innings on 39 pitches - both career-high marks - striking out four while allowing only a pair of hits. In the eighth frame, the transfer from Kentucky Wesleyan struck out the side swinging, in order, on 16 pitches.
Although he allowed the first Golden Eagles' extra-base hit of the day in the ninth to LeeMarcus Boyd, he was stranded on third on a game-ending fly out to Rhinesmith in center field to clinch the 7-1 victory.
Topper Notes
- It was the first WKU win over a ranked team since a 7-3 game at No. 3 Louisville on April 22, 2015.
- The victory broke a nine-game losing streak to the Golden Eagles, as WKU improved to 2-9 in the all-time series.
- WKU improved to 6-5 in away games, already eclipsing the team's 5-17 road record from 2017.
- Southern Miss had not been held under two runs in a regular-season home game since a 2-0 loss on March 10, 2017 vs. Xavier; a span of 40 games in-between.
- Meanwhile, the seven runs scored by the Hilltoppers' lineup was the most in any of the 11 games against the Golden Eagles.
- In his third start on The Hill, Nick Brunson recorded his first multi-hit and multi-run performances.
- Steven Kraft went 1-for-2 and tied a career high with three walks to push his on-base streak to 20 games. With that day at the plate, along with a 3-for-5 game to begin the series, Kraft improved his on-base percentage from .467 to .490.
- Jacob Rhinesmith is the first Hilltopper with at least a 10-10 season since 2009, when Wade Gaynor (25-23), Chad Cregar (17-21) and Matt Hightower (11-25) all accomplished the feat.
- Although his six-game hit streak was halted with an 0-for-5 performance to begin the series, Luke Brown bounced back with a 2-for-4 day at the plate. The freshman has knocked two hits in six of his past eight starts.
Topper Quotes
- "After playing that first game, we talked about how we didn't handle the ball very well and didn't play very well. But I thought we did a tremendous job today. I'm proud of the way we played, coming back after losing that first game." — Head coach John Pawlowski
- "Ryan Thurston has continually gone out there and done what he's capable of doing and Austin Tibbs did a tremendous job out of the bullpen. Offensively, we took some really good swings against some really good arms of Southern Miss." — Head coach John Pawlowski
Up Next
WKU and No. 13 Southern Miss face off in the rubber match on Sunday at 1 p.m. It will be righties Paul Kirkpatrick and Walker Powell opposing each other on the mound.
The Hilltoppers are 3-0 in the final game of Conference USA series, and with a win would match their 16 overall wins and six league wins from 2017. It will be an incredible challenge, however, as the Golden Eagles have won seven consecutive series at Pete Taylor Park and 13 of their past 14 series in C-USA play.
