From staff reports

Southern Miss overcame a shaky performance from its pitching staff and weathered a two-plus hour rain delay to finish off a road sweep of Middle Tennessee with a 13-9 win Sunday.

Dylan Burdeaux put up a pair of two-run singles, including one in the top of the ninth that put the 25th-ranked Golden Eagles ahead 9-8 and highlighted the visitors’ eight-run ninth. The win is the fourth in a row for Scott Berry’s squad, which improves to 34-12 overall and 16-5 in Conference USA action. Southern Miss remains in first place in the league standings, one game ahead of second-place Florida Atlantic.

In the Golden Eagles’ monster ninth inning, Matt Wallner blasted a two-run home run to push the lead to 13-8. It was the outfielder’s 14th of the season, breaking the school’s freshman record. Darren Welch was the previous record-holder, hitting 13 in 1999.

"Being behind three runs with an inning to play, with this offense, that's not much," Berry said during his postgame radio interview. "We can usually cut that pretty quick. We had a lot of great at-bats in that ninth inning, but probably Burdeaux's was the biggest.

"But it was an overall team effort."

Nick Sandlin (6-1) picked up the win with two innings of relief.

The Blue Raiders scored eight runs off Southern Miss starter Trent Driver and relievers J.C. Keys and Hayden Roberts.

Following the rain delay that halted play in the bottom of the eighth inning, Middle Tennessee scored a run off Sandlin to push its lead to 8-5.

But in the ninth, Matthew Guidry walked with the bases loaded and LeeMarcus Boyd's run-scoring single cut the deficit to 8-7. Burdeaux followed with a two-strike, one-out single to left field to put the Golden Eagles ahead. The senior has driven in 52 runs this season.

Mason Irby, who extended his hitting streak to 12 games, singled in another run before Wallner's two-run blast.

Southern Miss will return to action at 6 p.m. Friday, when it hosts Florida Atlantic at Pete Taylor Park.