HATTIESBURG, Miss. – App State Baseball went toe-to-toe with 11th-ranked Southern Miss on Friday but came up on the wrong end of a 6-7 final at Pete Taylor Field.
The Mountaineers (12-12, 2-5) got a strong start from
Nick DiRito and held the Golden Eagles to just 2-for-14 with runners in scoring position, but Southern Miss (20-6, 4-3) took the lead late with a four-run eighth inning.
App State grabbed the early advantage in the third inning and led the nation's third-ranked RPI team for the majority of the contest.
Jalen Seward led off the inning with a walk and
Charlie Evans reached on an infield single to put two aboard. After a sacrifice from
Joseph Zamora pushed both runners into scoring position,
Steven Smith roped a double into the left field corner to put the Mountaineers ahead 2-0. After a single from
Tank Yaghoubi put runners at the corners, App State put both men in motion and Smith came home to score on the throw down to second.
DiRito enjoyed another strong outing for App State. After allowing the first two batters to reach in the first inning, DiRito wiggled out of trouble and kept the Golden Eagles off balance the rest of his appearance. He limited the damage to just a single run in the third and fifth, stranding seven men on base in the outing. He tossed six innings, allowing just two runs on six hits and struck out five.
Leading 3-2 in the sixth, App State tacked on a pair. With one out, Yaghoubi singled to begin the rally. App State took advantage of a throwing error to put two aboard and
Ethan Puig came through with an RBI single to right-center. Later in the frame,
Colton Denton pushed a run across on a fielder's choice to make it 5-2.
Smith tallied a pair of doubles in the contest, while Yaghoubi and Denton also enjoyed two-hit efforts.
The first three Golden Eagles reached base in the bottom of the eighth and they took advantage of a pair of App State errors, including one on a likely double-play ball, paving the way to a four-run inning to grab the lead.
Camden Clark then struck out the side in the ninth to earn the save for Southern Miss.
The teams will face off in the middle game of the series on Saturday at 3 p.m. ET.
The 2026 App State Baseball season is presented by Chick-fil-A.
