The biggest baseball game in state history is going down in Hattiesburg. What to know.
Two Mississippi schools are set to battle for a spot in the College World Series for the first time in the Super Regional era.
The Ole Miss Rebels will make the 247-mile journey to face the Southern Miss Golden Eagles at Pete Taylor Park, a venue that just hosted over 25,000 fans in the Hattiesburg Regional.
After hosting the Conference USA tournament and the first round of the NCAA tournament, USM remains rooted in its home territory this weekend for the very first Super Regional ever played on Hill Denson Field.
It’ll be a best two-out-of-three series between USM and Ole Miss.
Tickets on StubHub.com start at a whopping $360 per seat for an individual game this weekend, with the if-necessary game three of the series starting at $400.
“There’s no other state that loves baseball more than Mississippi,” USM head coach Scott Berry said Monday following a 8-7 win over LSU. “You look at total attendance for all three schools in our state versus the big three schools in any other state and it’s not even close. This state is passionate about baseball.”
Ole Miss arrives after squeezing into the tournament as an at-large bid and becoming the unlikely winner of the Coral Gables Regional hosted by Miami.
Southern Miss earned the No. 11 national seed and the right to host LSU, Army and Kennesaw State in its own park.
The two schools have met twice this year already, splitting the meetings between a neutral site contest in Pearl and one in Hattiesburg.
The Golden Eagles won the first meeting in Pearl and the Rebels took the second in front of a USM-record crowd of 6,346 fans.
The series offers a chance at redemption for USM, which played in the Oxford regional last year and was eliminated on the final day by the Rebels.
First pitch of game one will be at 3 p.m. on Saturday and will be broadcast nationally on ESPNU. Game two on Sunday will also start at 3 p.m. and will be broadcast on either ESPN2 or ESPNU. Start times for a game three on Monday will be determined if the contest is necessary.
This story was originally published June 8, 2022 at 3:37 PM.
