HATTIESBURG, Miss. – The Virginia baseball team (37-22) outlasted the No. 9 Southern Miss Golden Eagles 15-11 in 10 innings on Saturday (May 30) at Pete Taylor Park in the Hattiesburg Regional.
After trading 22 runs over the opening nine innings, the Virginia offense delivered a knockout punch with a four-run tenth that was highlighted by a two-run homer off the bat of Kyle Johnson.
AJ Gracia powered the Cavalier offense with a 5-for-6 day with five RBIs and a double. Johnson and RJ Holmes each had three hits while Noah Murray and Harrison Didawick recorded multi-hit games.
In relief, Max Stammel picked up the win for UVA by tossing 1.1 scoreless innings of work.
HOW IT HAPPENED
- Four pitches into the contest, Virginia grabbed a 1-0 lead with back-to-back doubles from Holmes and Gracia.
- The back-and-forth started in the bottom of the second when the Golden Eagles’ Tucker Stockman put Southern Miss up 3-1 with a two-out three-run blast to dead center.
- Following a Holmes hit by pitch and a Gracia single in the top of the third, Joe Tiroly smashed his second three-run homer of the weekend to push UVA back out in front at 4-3.
- In the home half of the inning, Southern Miss’ Davis Gillespie put the Golden Eagles back out front at 6-4 with a three-run blast of his own.
- Four straight singles fueled a five-run UVA Fourth that was highlighted by a bases-clearing triple that AJ Gracia smacked down the line in right.
- Southern Miss chipped away at the Virginia lead by plating a pair of runs in the bottom of the sixth to make it a 9-8 contest.
- Virginia stretched its lead to 11-9 in the top of the seventh with RBI base knocks from Murray and Gracia.
- Prior to his ejection, John Paone threw 3.1 innings of two-run ball to keep the Southern Miss bats at bay.
- Down to their final five outs, the Golden Eagles tied the ballgame at 11-11 with an RBI single to right and a two-run bases-loaded double. USM’s Drey Barrett was thrown out at the plate on the play for the final out of the frame.
- Stammel worked around a two-out Southern Miss single to force extra innings.
- In extras, UVA exploded for four runs, including a go-ahead two-out two-run single from Zach Jackson that was followed by a Kyle Johnson two-run home run that proved to be the exclamation point in the contest.
- To steal the 11-15 Virginia victory, Stammel fanned a pair of batters and got a fly out to end the game.
ADDITIONAL NOTES
- Virginia moves to 73-50 all-time NCAA Tournament games and 1-0 all-time against Southern Miss.
- UVA’s 15 runs on Saturday are tied for the third most by the Cavaliers in an NCAA Tournament game and are the most in a postseason game since scoring 15 against Army in 2023.
- Dating back to the 2014 season, UVA has won three-straight extra-inning postseason games.
- AJ Gracia’s five hits on Saturday are the most by a Cavalier in an NCAA Tournament game in program history.
- Gracia joins Pavin Smith in 2017 and Jake Gelof in 2022 as the only three Cavaliers to drive in five runs during an NCAA Tournament game.
- Harrison Didawick scored his 199th career run in the inning to tie Bobby Rivell's program record.
- Virginia improves to 18-1 on the year when scoring 10 or more runs and 2-2 in extra innings this season.
- Harrison Didawick and Zach Jackson both extended their reached base streaks to 13 games.
UP NEXT
Virginia will play the loser of Little Rock and Jacksonville State in Sunday’s elimination game at 4 p.m. ET. The game will be carried on the ESPN family of networks.