BATON ROUGE — Southern Miss scored two runs in the top of the eighth inning and Courtney Blades pitched her 21st inning in 21 hours to put the Lady Eagles in a rematch against LSU in the championship game to begin at 4:15 p.m. CDT on Sunday at the NCAA Regional at Tiger Park.
Blades (49-6), who was the losing pitcher in Saturday night’s 4:21, 1-0, loss to LSU, pitched eight innings and allowed one run on eight hits. She struckout 11 after gunning down 21 Saturday night.
Southern Miss improved to 60-11 on the season while Oregon ended its season at 36-29. Connie McMurren received the loss and fell to 16-19.
After a double by Erin Johnson to lead off the top of the eighth, Southern Miss’ Jennifer Ford singled and Kenya Peters walked to load the bases. Channika Gant then singled to right field to score Johnson from third to take a 2-1 lead. With the bases still loaded, Oregon starter Connie McMurren got back-to-back infield pop outs before walking in the Lady Eagle’s second run of the inning.
Southern Miss scored first in the game with a run without a hit in the top of the second inning against McMurren. With a walk to Johnson and back-to-back sacrifices to advance her to third, she scored on a a fielder’s choice to take a 1-0 lead.
Oregon tied the game and eventually sent it to extra innings with a run in the bottom of the sixth. Missy Coe walked to open the inning and was pinch run for by Amber Hutchinson. Back-to-back singles from Lindsey Welch and Triawn Custer scored Hutchinson from third.