May 17, 2007

Final Stats

Game Highlights

HOUSTON, Texas - Senior pitcher Ryan Belanger pitched his first complete-game of his two-year Southern Miss career and limited Houston to four hits, one walk and struck out eight batters to lead Southern Miss to a 6-0 victory over the Cougars, in game one of the three-game Conference USA weekend series at Cougar Field tonight in front of 929 in attendance.

Belanger finished with 120 pitches, gave up one walk in the first inning, two hits in the third inning, one in the fourth inning and one in the eighth inning. Only one runner advanced to second base in the game and he retired the side in six of the nine innings. His eight strikeouts matched his season high that he collected earlier this season against Kent State on March 16.

Trey Sutton, Jody Blount and Luke Adkins each finished with two hits to lead the Golden Eagles. Michael Ewing and Adkins each finished with two RBIs and Blount and James Ewing each had one. Sutton extended his hitting streak to 18 games, Dozier extended his to nine games and Michael Ewing and Carson extended their hitting streaks to seven games.

Luis Flores led the Cougars with two hits, and Ryan Lormand and Josh Stirneman each finished with one hit.

Southern Miss (35-19, 12-10 Conference USA) finished with six runs on 10 hits, while Houston (28-24, 12-10 C-USA) finished with four hits and committed one error. This game marked the fifth time this season that the Golden Eagles have recorded a shutout, the most shutouts in a season since the 2002 and 2003 seasons.

Southern Miss scored first spotting a 2-0 lead in the sixth inning. Dozier led off the inning with a double past third baseman Dustin Kingsbury. Jody Blount reached on a fielding error by second baseman Felix Fanaselle that advanced Dozier to third base. Michael Ewing grounded out to first base, plating Dozier from third base and advancing Blount to second base. Luke Adkins flew out to center to advance Blount to third, and James Ewing singled up the middle to drive in Blount for the second run of the inning.

The Golden Eagles struck for four more in the seventh inning to extend their lead to 6-0. Chris Matesich hit a one-out single to shallow center field, advanced to third on Sutton's single to left field, Dozier walked to load the bases and scored on Blount's single to center. Michael Ewing grounded out to first base to plate Sutton and Adkins hit a two-run single to right center to score Dozier and Blount for third and fourth runs of the inning.

Southern Miss and Houston play the second game of the three-game Conference USA series on Friday night at 7 p.m., at Cougar Field. The series finale takes place on Saturday at 1 p.m.