Hadley, Southern Miss clinch C-USA regular-season title

Southern Miss pitchers threw a shutout. Pascagoula’s Tracy Hadley drove in runs on all three of his hits.

The Golden Eagles won the Conference USA regular-season baseball championship with an 8-0 win over UAB on Sunday.

“I wanted us to seal the deal,” said Golden Eagles coach Scott Berry, whose club improved to 40-12 overall and 22-5 in Conference USA with the win at Pete Taylor Park.

Seal it they did. Second-place Old Dominion is 18-9 but with only three games left on the C- USA schedule, has no mathematical chance to catch the Golden Eagles in the standings.

“This is what we work for, in the fall and the spring,” said Hadley, a former Pascagoula High and Pearl River Community College standout. “We stayed the course and we came out on top.”

It is the first time since 2003 that Southern Miss has won sole possession of the C-USA regular-season title although the team was a co-champion two times in the 2000s.

The three weekend wins over UAB (23-29, 8-19) accounted for USM’s third straight sweep, the fifth C-USA sweep and the seventh total sweep this season.

Sunday’s victory also was the 10th straight win, the longest streak of the season, and this is only the third time any Southern Miss baseball team has won 40 games in a regular season. Including postseason contests, it is the 10th time for the Eagles to win 40 games.

“I couldn’t be more proud of our club, our players, our staff, everything that went in to get us where we are,” Berry said. “We played consistent all year long. We asked them to understand that steady wins the race. That’s the effort that they gave out, whether it’s practice or a game.

“It shows in the success, it shows in the chemistry of this club. This is a great day, and it was a great series for us to win.”

The win also was the fifth shutout of the season.

“It’s hard to lose when they have zeroes up there,” Berry said.

Taylor Braley (5-2) was the main man on the mound. He pitched 7.0 innings, allowed four hits, struck out seven and walked only one.

“It’s all come together, for the most part, just trying to mix things up, change speeds on them and not throwing multiple pitches multiple times in a row,” Braley said. “Just trying to paint the corners, keeping it low in the zone and letting the defense work.”

Stevie Powers pitched the eighth inning and Nick Sandlin the ninth.

The USM bats got going in the third inning. Dylan Burdeaux singled, one run scored on a throwing error and another crossed the plate on a single by Hadley, who also drove in another run with a single in the fifth inning to make it 3-0.

Matthew Guidry and Hadley each drove in a run with doubles and two more scored on an error in the seventh inning.

“I’ve been struggling this whole season,” Hadley said. “My teammates picked me up every game and fortunately, I was able to pick them up this game.”

Southern Miss totaled 10 hits. Hadley had three and Hunter Slater had two.

UAB managed only five hits.

Following the game, the song “Celebration” was played over the public address system, the Golden Eagles met, as usual, for a brief meeting in left field, then several pitchers got in a little bullpen work. There was happiness, but there was no dancing, no jumping up and down.

“You work hard for a conference championship, but we’re not done,” Hadley said.

Southern Miss will play Southeastern Louisiana at MGM Park in Biloxi at 7:05 p.m. Tuesday and will play their final Conference USA series at UTSA on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

This story was originally published May 14, 2017 at 5:47 PM with the headline "Hadley, Southern Miss clinch C-USA regular-season title."