May 29, 2004

HOUSTON - Jarrett Hoffpauir belted two home runs - including a grand slam - and knocked in six of Southern Miss' 11 runs in the seventh inning to give Southern Miss a commanding lead a catapult the No. 3 seed Golden Eagles to a 16-10 win over No. 7 seed UAB on Saturday (May 29) morning in the semifinals of the 2004 Conference USA Baseball Tournament, presented by Sterling Bank, at Cougar Field. USM improves to 43-17 on the year, while UAB falls to 30-28.

With each team now with a loss, both will square off again this afternoon at 4:00 p.m. in the double-elimination format to see who advances to the tournament's championship game,

UAB got on the board first with two runs in the first, and USM answered with three in the bottom of the inning to capture its first lead at 3-2.

The Blazers went on an offensive tear in the third with six runs on seven hits. After Eugene Rodriguez flied out to center, Daniel Hill started the rally with a single up the middle. Nathan McCorkle followed with a single, Jeremy Moran walked and Seth Rollin smashed a home run to left to clear the bases and record the game's first grand slam.

Zac Ward then singled, and after Levi Patmon doubled to put runners on second and third, Rodriguez laced a single down the right field line to cap off the six-run rally.

UAB added a solo run in the fifth to go up, 9-3, before USM came back with two runs in the bottom of the same inning to pull to within four on a run-scoring balk and an RBI-single by Jason Lowery.

Two innings later, the Golden Eagles erupted. After Marc Maddox led off the inning with a walk, Hoffpauir belted his first home run of the inning over the left field fence. Six hits -including two doubles and Hoffpauir's grand slam - one walk and two Blazer fielding errors later, USM built a 10-16 lead.

Seven of the Golden Eagles' 11 runs in the inning were unearned.

Each team used five pitchers in the game. Austin Tubb was the fourth Golden Eagle to take the mound and hurled 2.1 innings allowing one unearned run on two hits to earn the win and improve to a perfect 7-0 this season.

UAB's fourth pitcher, Cole Helms, suffered the loss and fell to an even 2-2 on the year after surrendering five unearned runs on just one hit in facing five batters. He failed to record an out.

The winner of the UAB-USM game later this afternoon will advance and face either Houston or TCU for the C-USA Tournament Championship title on Sunday (May 30) at 1:00 p.m.