USM baseball beats Penn to win NCAA Tournament's Auburn Regional

AUBURN, Ala. — Dustin Dickerson stood for a beat and watched the ball fly before he sauntered around the bases. He slapped Scott Berry's hand as he rounded third, celebrating a three-run homer that helped secure at least another week on the job for the retiring Southern Miss baseball coach.

Dickerson's sixth-inning home run was the critical blow in an 11-7 victory for the No. 2 Golden Eagles over No. 4 Penn in the Auburn Regional's decisive game Monday at Plainsman Park.

With its victory, USM (45-18) advances to the NCAA Tournament's super-regional round for the second year in a row, where it will take on Tennessee (41-19). The location and schedule for that best-of-three series has yet to be announced.

While Dickerson's homer gave the Golden Eagles the lead for good, it did not put an end to the drama.

A hit-by-pitch, two hits and an error got Penn (34-16) back within one run in the next half inning before Southern Miss called on Will Armistead out of the bullpen. He struck out two batters to strand runners on second and third and preserve the lead.

Armistead did not allow a run the rest of the way, and USM added three big insurance runs in the bottom of the eighth to ease the pressure. The fourth straight do-or-die victory marked the first time in program history that the Golden Eagles have won a regional after losing the opener.

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Southern Miss encountered its largest deficit of the postseason when Penn exploded for a three-run top of the fourth inning that gave the Quakers an early 5-1 lead.

In response, the Golden Eagles hopped aboard the merry-go-round.

The first seven batters in the Southern Miss half of the fourth singled, walked or got hit by a pitch. The Golden Eagles had the game tied at 5-5 before Penn recorded its first out of the inning.

But Southern Miss couldn't turn a big inning into a huge inning. Slade Wilks popped out to second base and Christopher Sargent grounded into a double play, forcing USM to settle for parity and do more work later.

As it did in last season's regional, the Southern Miss coaching staff gave the ball to ace Tanner Hall to start the decider. Hall, who threw 123 pitches Friday in USM's regional opener, allowed two unearned runs in two innings of work.

After the Quakers touched up rarely used USM bullpen arm Luke Trahan for three runs in an inning, Golden Eagles pitching coach Christian Ostrander handed the ball to Billy Oldham, who started Saturday and threw 81 pitches.

Oldham pitched brilliantly, holding the Quakers scoreless in three frames of work, allowing just two hits.

David Eckert covers sports for the Clarion Ledger. Email him at [email protected] or reach him on Twitter @davideckert98.