USM is headed to Ole Miss to take part in the Oxford Regional. A tough field awaits.
The Southern Miss baseball team will travel to Ole Miss for the Oxford Regional after coming up just shy of earning the right to host games in the first round of the NCAA tournament.
USM, which is the No. 2 seed, will take on No. 3 Florida State (30-22) at 2 p.m. on Friday on the first day of action. The game will be shown on ESPNU.
No. 1 seed Ole Miss (41-19) will play No. 4 Southeast Missouri State (30-20) in Friday’s 7 p.m. contest on ESPNU.
“It looks like one of the tougher (regionals) the NCAA put together,” USM coach Scott Berry said. “It looks like any of the clubs could come out of there.”
The winner of the Oxford Regional will take on the champion of the Tucson Regional, which features No. 1 Arizona, No. 2 Oklahoma State, No. 3 UC-Santa Barbara and No. 4 Grand Canyon.
The Golden Eagles are 37-19 after falling to Louisiana Tech in the semifinals of the Conference USA baseball tournament in Ruston last week.
Even though USM showed some weakness in its bullpen in the C-USA tournament last week, it has more than enough starting pitching to get through the regional.
The four-man rotation of senior right-hander Hunter Stanley, C-USA Pitcher of the Year Walker Powell, freshman right-hander Ben Etheridge and sophomore lefty Drew Boyd was the best in the conference this season.
If USM can get their starters deep into games and enough production at the plate, the Golden Eagles are capable of advancing to a Super Regional.
The challenge for USM is to put Saturday’s two losses out of their memory in a hurry.
“Obviously, everyone is hurt. We’re tore up about it. It’s tough, you know,” Stanley said. “Obviously, we’ve seen all kinds of things on Twitter, heard all kinds of stuff. We didn’t want to lose that way. It is what it is. We’ve got to move forward. We’ve got to do it really quick and pull together tight if we’re going to have a chance to make a deep run in the postseason. I like how the guys responded.”
Berry didn’t fully commit to Stanley being his starter for the Florida State game, but he said that’s the most likely outcome.
Golden Eagles take on Florida State
Florida State is traditionally a program that hosts an NCAA regional, but the Seminoles weren’t quite up to their usual standard against a schedule that mostly featured ACC competition.
USM was originally scheduled to play a weekend series at Florida State this season, but COVID protocols in the ACC prevented that from happening.
FSU has been strong on the road this season, winning series at Miami, Georgia Tech and Notre Dame.
The Golden Eagles traveled to take part in the Tallahassee Regional at Florida State in 2016, losing 7-2 to the Seminoles on the second day of competition.
Ole Miss rolls in playing well
The Rebels start the NCAA tournament as the No. 12 overall seed after making a strong 3-2 run through the SEC Tournament, including a 4-1 win over Vanderbilt.
The Rebels ranked second in SEC conference play in team batting average at .289 with 39 homers and 197 runs scored.
This marks the third postseason trip for Southern Miss to Ole Miss after playing in Oxford in 2005 and 2007 in the regional round.
The Golden Eagles were eliminated in two games in 2005, losing to Oklahoma 5-4 and Maine 12-2.
In 2007, the Golden Eagles beat Troy 14-1 on Day 1, but lost the next two games — 4-0 to Ole Miss and 12-11 to Sam Houston State.
Mississippi State gets national seed
Mississippi State is the No. 7 national seed and appeared to land one of the softer fields in the entire NCAA tournament.
The Bulldogs (40-15) will take on No. 4 Samford (35-22) at 2 p.m. on Friday. No. 2 Virginia Commonwealth (37-14) will battle No. 3 Campbell (35-16) in the 7 p.m. contest.
The Starkville Regional will match up with the winner of the South Bend Regional, which features No. 1 Notre Dame, No. 2 UConn, No. 3 Michigan and No. 4 Central Michigan.
This story was originally published May 31, 2021 at 11:26 AM.
