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Tennessee rallies to set up winner-take-all game 3 against USM

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Southern Miss shortstop Dustin Dickerson (10) attempts to turn a double play against Tennessee during an NCAA Super Regional Sunday, June 11, 2023, in Hattiesburg, Miss. (Aimee Cronan/The Gazebo Gazette via AP)

HATTIESBURG — Southern Miss was up one game in the best-of-three Super Regional and had snatched a 4-0 lead over Tennessee in Game 2. A sun-baked, humidity-broiled overflow crowd at Pete Taylor Park of 5,882 was thundering its approval Sunday. The Golden Eagles were six innings away from a trip to the College World Series, and two-time All-American Tanner Hall was on the mound.

Rick Cleveland

Then it happened.

Christian Moore doubled to left field to start the Tennessee fourth. After a fly out, Merritt Griffin singled home Moore to cut the lead to 4-1, bringing first baseman Blake Burke, a left-handed slugger, to the plate. The count reached two balls and two strikes, and Hall threw a slider, down at the knees across the plate.

“A good pitch,” USM coach Scott Berry would later say. “It wasn’t like Tanner hung it. It was a good pitch down in the zone.”

Burke unleashed a violent swing, connected and there was never any doubt. Golden Eagle right fielder Carson Paetow just turned around and stared. He didn’t move. No need.

Burke’s blast rocketed far above the smoking barbecue grills in Southern Miss’ right field roost, sailed through the tops of tall pine trees, landed in the parking lot of St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church, and then one-hopped high off the church’s brown exterior. 

We were told in the press box Burke’s two-run home run, which cut USM’s lead to 4-3, traveled 479 feet from home plate. It did more than that. It changed the game.

Tennessee coach Tony Vitello used a basketball metaphor. “It’s like in basketball where two points is two points, but yet an emphatic slam dunk can kind of change the momentum of the entire game. A home run like that can be like a slam dunk. It changes the mood in the dugouts. It kind of changes everything.”

Burke’s blast surely seemed to do just that. Before the fourth inning was over, the Vols would score three more runs, take a 6-4 lead and never look back for an 8-4 victory that sends this Hattiesburg Super Regional to a third and deciding game Monday. As of 7:15 p.m. Sunday, ESPN had not chosen a Monday game time.

Southern Miss’s Dustin Dickerson (10) slides safely into third base while Tennessee infielder Zane Denton (44) waits for the ball during an NCAA Super Regional game Sunday. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

The first two days of this Super Regional have been like a grueling, sweat-drenched marathon. Southern Miss won the first game, which began at 2 p.m. Saturday, endured two lengthy weather delays, and ended early Sunday afternoon. After leading 4-0 Saturday, Southern Miss held on for a hard-earned 5-3 victory.

Beginning at 11 a.m., Justin Storm pitched the last 4.2 innings for Southern Miss for the victory, blanking the powerful Vols on just two hits after Billy Oldham had given the Golden Eagles a quality start the day before. Shortstop Dustin Dickerson slammed a home run and a double, second baseman Nick Monistere homered and left fielder Tate Parker ripped a two-run triple.

Game 2 also started well for the home team. Hall blanked the Vols for three straight innings and then his teammates struck for four runs in the third inning off Tennessee’s highly touted right hander Chase Dollander, expected to be a top 10 pick in this summer’s Major League draft.

Christopher Sargent’s three-run home run off the scoreboard in left field was the big blow of the four-hit, four-run inning. But who would have thought it? Southern Miss never managed another hit off Dollander, who mixed 96- and 97-mph fastballs with some nasty breaking pitches. Dollander only seemed to get stronger. Put it this way: Dollander’s 107th pitch in the 9th inning was a 97-mph fastball on the inside corner.

Dollander couldn’t quite finish. Vitello brought in Chase Burns for the final three outs, which must have seemed like good news for the Golden Eagles at the time. But then three of Burns’ first four pitches hit 100 mph on the radar gun and he used just 10 pitches to get the last three outs.

Berry, who Monday could be coaching his last game of a remarkable 14-year run as Southern Miss coach, often likens post-season baseball games to heavyweight fights. In this Super Regional, Tennessee has gotten off the canvas and floored Southern Miss with a bevy of punches, including Burke’s haymaker.

How will the Golden Eagles respond?

Hall, who might well have pitched his last game as a Golden Eagle Sunday, believes he knows. “We know what it takes to win and we’ll do what it takes to win,” Hall said. “After a tough loss, we always come back.”

Said Berry, “We are a veteran team. We believe in ourselves.”

Tennessee, just one season removed from being one of the most dominant regular season teams in college baseball history, is likewise a veteran team that feels like it has some unfinished business after falling flat in its own Super Regional last year.

So here we are, one game, winner-take-all for a ticket to Omaha. Tennessee will likely pitch sophomore Drew Beam (8-4), who won the final game of the Clemson Regional. USM will likely go with either sophomore Nikko Mazza (5-1) or junior Matthew Adams (3-2).

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Mississippi Today

House gives Senate 5 p.m. deadline to come to table, or legislative session ends with no state budget

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mississippitoday.org – @MSTODAYnews – 2025-04-02 16:13:00

The House on Wednesday attempted one final time to revive negotiations between it and the Senate over passing a state budget.

Otherwise, the two Republican-led chambers will likely end their session without funding government services for the next fiscal year and potentially jeopardize state agencies.

The House on Wednesday unanimously passed a measure to extend the legislative session and revive budget bills that had died on legislative deadlines last weekend. 

House Speaker Jason White said he did not have any prior commitment that the Senate would agree to the proposal, but he wanted to extend one last offer to pass the budget. White, a Republican from West, said if he did not hear from the Senate by 5 p.m. on Wednesday, his chamber would end its regular session. 

“The ball is in their court,” White said of the Senate. “Every indication has been that they would not agree to extend the deadlines for purposes of doing the budget. I don’t know why that is. We did it last year, and we’ve done it most years.” 

But it did not appear likely Wednesday afternoon that the Senate would comply.

The Mississippi Legislature has not left Jackson without setting at least most of the state budget since 2009, when then Gov. Haley Barbour had to force them back to set one to avoid a government shutdown.

The House measure to extend the session is now before the Senate for consideration. To pass, it would require a two-thirds majority vote of senators. But that might prove impossible. Numerous senators on both sides of the aisle vowed to vote against extending the current session, and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann who oversees the chamber said such an extension likely couldn’t pass. 

Senate leadership seemed surprised at the news that the House passed the resolution to negotiate a budget, and several senators earlier on Wednesday made passing references to ending the session without passing a budget. 

“We’ll look at it after it passes the full House,” Senate President Pro Tempore Dean Kirby said. 

The House and Senate, each having a Republican supermajority, have fought over many issues since the legislative session began early January.

But the battle over a tax overhaul plan, including elimination of the state individual income tax, appeared to cause a major rift. Lawmakers did pass a tax overhaul, which the governor has signed into law, but Senate leaders cried foul over how it passed, with the House seizing on typos in the Senate’s proposal that accidentally resembled the House’s more aggressive elimination plan.

The Senate had urged caution in eliminating the income tax, and had economic growth triggers that would have likely phased in the elimination over many years. But the typos essentially negated the triggers, and the House and governor ran with it.

The two chambers have also recently fought over the budget. White said he communicated directly with Senate leaders that the House would stand firm on not passing a budget late in the session. 

But Senate leaders said they had trouble getting the House to meet with them to haggle out the final budget. 

On the normally scheduled “conference weekend” with a deadline to agree to a budget last Saturday, the House did not show, taking the weekend off. This angered Hosemann and the Senate. All the budget bills died, requiring a vote to extend the session, or the governor forcing them into a special session.

If the Legislature ends its regular session without adopting a budget, the only option to fund state agencies before their budgets expire on June 30 is for Gov. Tate Reeves to call lawmakers back into a special session later. 

“There really isn’t any other option (than the governor calling a special session),” Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann previously said. 

If Reeves calls a special session, he gets to set the Legislature’s agenda. A special session call gives an otherwise constitutionally weak Mississippi governor more power over the Legislature. 

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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Mississippi Today

Candice Wilder joins Mississippi Today as new higher education reporter

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mississippitoday.org – @MSTODAYnews – 2025-04-02 12:24:00

Mississippi Today is pleased to announce that Candice Wilder has joined the newsroom as our newest higher education reporter.

Wilder takes over higher ed coverage from Mississippi Today reporter Molly Minta, who built the beat starting in early 2021 but has since moved to the newsroom’s team covering the city of Jackson.

“I’m thrilled to join a talented and ambitious team of journalists who provide critical news and information to Mississippians,” Wilder said. “Reporting on the state’s colleges and universities at this moment is more important now than ever. My goal is to develop thoughtful coverage and tell crucial stories that will continue to serve and reflect these communities.

Candice Wilder is the education reporter for Mississippi Today.

Wilder, an Ohio native, was one of 19 founding staff members of Signal Cleveland, an inaugural nonprofit newsroom part of Signal Ohio. There, she developed a beat that provided accessible health news and information to residents of Cleveland. Her work has led to recognitions from the Cleveland Press Club and the Association of Healthcare Journalists.

“We couldn’t be more excited to welcome Candice to our newsroom,” said Adam Ganucheau, Mississippi Today’s editor-in-chief. “So many aspects of the higher education system are under intense scrutiny and attack across the country — from free speech to funding to accountability — and Mississippi is certainly no exception. Our colleges and universities are at the heart of critical conversations about equity, access, and the future of our state as a whole. Candice brings a sharp eye, strong reporting skills, and genuine curiosity to our team, and I’m confident that her work will help Mississippians navigate the often complicated and evolving nature of higher ed here.”

“We’re so happy to have someone with Candice Wilder’s passion and experience to pick up the mantle of higher education reporting at Mississippi Today,” said Debbie Skipper, who will serve as her editor. “Molly Minta set a high standard in our reporting in this area, and I know Candice will maintain that while offering her own professional perspective.”

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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Mississippi Today

PSC revives solar programs a year after suspending them

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mississippitoday.org – @alxrzr – 2025-04-02 11:25:00

The Mississippi Public Service Commission voted unanimously on Tuesday to lift a stay on programs offering incentives for solar power. The same commission voted to suspend the programs last April.

The PSC initially voted in 2024 to suspend three programs: “Solar for Schools,” which allows school districts to essentially build solar panels for free in exchange for tax credits, as well as incentives for battery storage and low-income participants in the state’s “distributed generation” rule. Mississippi’s “distributed generation” rule is similar to net metering in other places, but reimburses customers for less than what most states offer.

Net metering is a program where power companies — in this case Entergy Mississippi and Mississippi Power — reimburse customers who generate their own solar power, often with rooftop panels, and sell any extra power back to the grid.

The PSC suspended the programs in 2024 because, at the time, the federal government was also offering funds through its “Solar for All” initiative. The commission reasoned that the state didn’t need to add incentives, which the previous commission approved in 2022 on top of the new funding. After learning that the state government didn’t receive any “Solar for All” funding, the PSC decided on Tuesday to reverse course.

Solar panels on the central office building of the Ocean Springs School District.

While the State of Mississippi didn’t receive any of the funding, Hope Enterprise Corp. did get $94 million last year through the program to bring solar power to low-income and disadvantaged homes in the state.

The previous PSC created the “Solar for Schools” program as a way to save school districts money on their power bills to help with other expenses. While no districts were able to make use of the program before the PSC suspended it last year, other districts have seen savings after installing solar panels. Any of the 95 school districts within the Entergy and Mississippi Power grids are eligible for the PSC incentives.

Solar advocates disagreed with the PSC’s assertion that federal “Solar for All” funding would have replaced the PSC programs, which went into effect in January 2023, arguing that the commission’s ruling would scare off potential new business. Those advocates applauded Tuesday’s reversal, saying the incentives will support professions within the solar supply chain such as electricians, roofers, manufacturers and installers.

“Yesterday’s actions by the MPSC sends a strong signal that Mississippi is open for business,” Monika Gerhart, executive director of the Gulf States Renewable Energy Industries Association, said via email. “For schools and homeowners that want to save money on their light bill, yesterday’s vote creates additional savings to install solar.” 

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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