Southern Miss continues torrid start, run-rules Alabama for 7th straight win
There are few college teams playing better baseball since opening day than Southern Miss.
The Golden Eagles on Tuesday run-ruled visiting Alabama 14-4 to push their winning streak to seven games since dropping the season opener against UC Santa Barbara.
Southern Miss (7-1) is hot off a sweep of the Round Rock Classic where it toppled Purdue, a ranked Oregon State team and Baylor. Souther Mississippi’s three high-major wins in the first eight games of the year are the most since 2019 and mark the third time the Eagles have done so this century.
The torrid start has USM polling as high as No. 10 by Perfect Game and at No. 12 by both D1 Baseball and Baseball America.
“We had a tough schedule on purpose, and these guys have answered pretty well,” Southern Mississippi coach Christian Ostrander said. “There’s still so much work to do, so much meat on that bone. Storms will come, and you just got to weather those storms. It’s a long baseball season. I like the characteristics these guys have shown these first eight games.”
Ostrander had a parade plan for his staff against the Crimson Tide, and the room delivered. Nine pitchers saw the mound and none threw more than 1.2 innings. Arizona State transfer Jake Neely was the only arm charged with earned runs, the other eight struck out 12 batters in 7.2 innings with only two hits allowed.
True freshmen Bruce Littleton and K.L. Farr debuted in relief and together downed six consecutive Crimson Tide batters with five set aside via strikeout.
“By design we were going to run a lot of arms out there and you got to force yourself to do that sometimes,” Ostrander said. “Littleton and Farr, I thought those were really good building blocks for them to move forward.”
The lineup took advantage of its own timely hitting and several Alabama errors. Ben Higdon and Kyle Morrison each launched a grand slam, the latter coming in a seven-run fourth inning.
The bats produced a season-high in runs behind a three-hit game from Seth Smith and four hits from Davis Gillespie.
But it was Ostrander’s army of pitchers that has turned heads and already drawn comparison to the 2022 staff that was headlined by Tanner Hall and produced a team ERA of 3.29.
“(Pitching) is such a hot commodity, you got to have the arms and the depth,” Ostrander said. “It’s reminiscent to me a bit of 2022 when I thought that was one of the deepest staffs I had. The other staffs have done well, but I do feel like one of the characteristics of this group could be a lot of options in that bullpen.”
Southern Miss, Mississippi State (9-0) and Ole Miss (9-0) are a combined 25-1 through 2.5 weeks. Each of the state’s SEC clubs will pass through Pete Taylor Park in 2026.
The Bulldogs are set to visit on Tuesday, March 3 and the Rebels follow on Tuesday, March 10.
The Golden Eagles play their first true road series this weekend against soon-to-be conference rival Louisiana Tech.
