HATTIESBURG — National recognition has come ever so slowly for Southern Miss baseball. Year after year, season after season, the Golden Eagles win 40 games and make an NCAA Regional, often hosting.
Season after season, they play an arduous non-conference schedule, packed with SEC rivals, and more than hold their own. They dominated Conference USA. They are pretty much dominating the Sun Belt, by far the best so-called mid-major league in the land.
Rick ClevelandThe Golden Eagles have won 40 or more games nine consecutive seasons. Nobody else in the nation has done that. Nobody. Only the Arkansas Razorbacks have done it eight times. For the last nine full seasons, Southern Miss has averaged 44 games per. That’s remarkable. That’s consistency, too. That is, as the big sign behind the left field fence at Pete Taylor Park/Hill Denson Field tells visitors, “A Tradition of Excellence.”
And yet, every season, until this one, they have begun outside of the national college baseball polls looking in. Every season, until this one, they have had to win their way into the polls, which they have done consistently. This year, finally, USM began the season ranked – and has steadily climbed into the Top 10 of several of the most recognized polls.
Here Tuesday night, before a standing-room-only crowd of more than 5,700, the Golden Eagles sent another message to the rest of the college world, knocking off No. 4 Mississippi State, an exceptionally talented team, 7-6, in an exceptionally entertaining game.
It was the Eagles’ 11th straight victory after losing their opener to perhaps the best pitcher in college baseball. They have achieved that record against the most difficult schedule any team in the nation has played.
Finally, the national college baseball pundits are taking notice, perhaps grudgingly. I say that because if the Eagles were wearing an SEC patch on their jerseys, they’d surely be rated even higher than they are now. Put it this way: Mississippi State, 11-2 vs. the nation’s 108th most difficult schedule, came into Tuesday night’s game ranked No. 4. Southern Miss, 11-1 against the No. 1 most difficult schedule, ranked as high as No. 8 and as low as No. 12 in the most recognized national polls.
It’s not just State. Auburn, 10-2 vs. the 109th most difficult schedule, is ranked No. 7. Arkansas, 10-3 against the 110th most difficult schedule, also ranks ahead of USM in the polls.
What can Southern Miss do to change that? Only one thing: keep winning. Win all the way to Omaha and the College World Series. And then win there.
Back in February, Ole Miss coach Mike Bianco was asked by The Athletic, what team might surprise everyone in 2025. This is what he said: “They certainly have gotten a lot more publicity in the last maybe five years, but people probably nationally don’t talk enough about Southern Miss — just how consistently good they are. And it’s almost a backhanded compliment to say for a mid-major, but they don’t play like that. They host (Regionals and Super Regionals), they do everything that everybody else does from a Power 4 standpoint. But they are probably the best team over maybe the last four or five years that hasn’t been in Omaha.”
Interestingly, Ole Miss and Bianco kept USM from going to Omaha in 2022 when the Rebels swept a Super Regional at Hattiesburg en route to the national championship. Just as interestingly, the Rebels surely would have not gotten into the NCAA Tournament that season if not for a late-season victory in Hattiesburg, which boosted the Rebs’ RPI.
USM pitcher Josh Och celebrates a big out. Credit: Courtesy of USM AthleticsOther SEC coaches have experienced USM’s baseball excellence first-hand. Auburn’s Butch Thompson, saw it in 2023 when the Golden Eagles went to The Plains and won the Auburn Regional. LSU’s Jay Johnson saw it in 2022 when his first Tiger team played in an NCAA Regional in Hattiesburg. USM won three straight games over 27 hours, beating LSU twice, to win the title. Alabama’s Rob Vaughn saw it just last week when the Crimson Tide came to Hattiesburg and was run-ruled, 14-4, by the Eagles. State’s Brian O’Connor saw it Tuesday night, calling Southern Miss “a really great ball club” with “an excellent pitching staff.”
As any seasoned college baseball observer will tell you, it’s all about getting hot at the right time and that right time is late May and June. Being hot in February and March – as the Eagles surely are – will get you pats on the back but no trophies, no tickets to Omaha.
That said, these Eagles surely have the potential to reach Omaha and win a championship. They have the pitching arms. They have a veteran lineup. They are deep, with several excellent players watching from the dugout most nights. Against State, Christian Ostrander kept trotting out true freshman pitchers, throwing mid-90’s fast balls with excellent breaking stuff. He used nine pitchers in all, five – count ‘em, five, freshmen. There are 26 pitchers on the USM roster. Few teams in college baseball have such pitching depth, which it what the post-season demands
Slick-fielding third baseman Drey Barrett, just a sophomore, struck the game’s biggest blow, a mammoth, 450-foot, three-run home run over the center field wall. There are no easy outs in this USM lineup. Thus far, they counter-punch every time they get punched in the mouth. After losing a 5-0 lead and falling behind, they responded once again against State.
Again, it’s a long road to Omaha and there will be sharp curves and potholes along the way. It’s baseball. That’s the nature of the game. The Eagles could lose to Nicholls on Wednesday night (as they did last season) and to North Alabama this weekend. But the guess here is that Ostrander’s third Southern Miss team is in the national picture for the long haul. The Eagles surely have that look about them.
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