Southern Miss Baseball Returns

Southern Miss returns. Fans wondered if Southern Miss could continue to dominate C-USA play this season. Why the wrong? The Golden Eagles lost arguably two of its best players, Nick Sandlin and Luke Reynolds. Both players declared for the MLB draft and both were selected. The Cleveland Indians drafted Nick Sandlin in the second round of the MLB draft by the Cleveland Indians, while the Chicago Cubs also drafted Luke Reynolds. Losing a legendary pitcher (Sandlin) and heavy hitter (Reynolds) will be pretty much impossible to replace, but the Golden Eagles still hope to remain at the top of the list, amongst everyone’s favorites in Conference USA.

Southern Miss finished the 2018 season with an overall record of 44-18 (23-6 C-USA). Their conference play record of 23-6 was actually the team’s best record in conference play in program history. The Golden Eagles’ 44-18 record was also the team’s highest winning percentage in over 50 years. The Golden Eagles ended up winning the C-USA tournament and advancing further in the post-season, into the NCAA Tournament. The Golden Eagles even found themselves ranked as high as #15 in the entire country.

Due to the success of last season and the start of this season, Southern Miss should win the vast majority of their matchups. The Student Printz predicts one of the Golden Eagles’ biggest threats to lie with Louisiana Tech, as the Bulldogs finished 39-20 last season, Louisiana Tech is returning a lot of experience this season, so that will be something to pay close attention to when the final stretch rolls around.

Junior Outfielder, Matt Walner looks to pick up the slack and blossom into one of the team’s primary leaders this season. Walner put up very impressive numbers last year, batting .351, tacking on 80 hits and 76 RBI’s. To go along with these numbers, Walner added 16 home-runs. Walner hasn't necessarily started off the season on the same pace but he has still been very productive for the team. In the short 21 game season, Walner is batting .267 with 20 hits and 18 RBI’s. He has also added 3 home-runs so far.

The Golden Eagles started off this season relatively slow. Southern Miss initially jumped the season off strong, with a 3-game sweep of Purdue and an additional win over Mississippi State. After the 4-0 start, the team dropped five consecutive games. Now 3 of these 4 losses came with a margin of two points or less, so the main problem early on seemed to be on closing out games and finishing strong. Ever since, the Golden Eagles have won 11 of their last 12 and seven straight.

Senior Outfielder, Hunter Slater (from Mobile Alabama) has been the team’s standout player so far this year. Slater currently leads the team with a batting average of .402, with 33 hits and an additional 22 RBI’s. Slater has also added four home-runs with a slugging percentage of .585.

The last three wins for the Golden Eagles come from a dominant sweep of Old Dominion. This sweep was a showing of the Golden Eagles protecting home-field… with scores of 11-0, 14,4, and 9-0.

The first game of the sweep came on Friday evening, and this matchup showed junior pitcher Walker Powell delivering the performance of his career. In Powell’s previous performance, he did not make it out of the second inning. This game was completely different, as Powell finished with a three-hit, complete game-shutout. This was his first collegiate complete game of his career. This also was the first complete game by any Golden Eagle pitcher this season, as Southern Miss won in convincing fashion over Old Dominion 11-0, at Pete Taylor Park.

"It's just the plan that Coach (Christian Ostrander) and I have put in place, just pitch to my strengths," said Powell, who tallied 14 ground-ball outs and struck out six additional batters. As Southernmiss.com shows, Powell stated the effective game-plan was pretty straightforward. "It's pretty simple: Pitch to the (strike) zone and keep the ball down. You do that, you're going to be pretty successful.” Southern Miss outfielder Gabe Montenegro also stated his satisfaction with the team finding their mojo again offensively.

"Our offense is back on track, and I feel like we have our confidence back," said Montenegro. Coa

ch Berry also said, “Our offense has picked up these last five games…We only left eight on (Friday) and the thing I really liked was that we kept getting runs in….. The main thing is, we kept the momentum going by scoring runs.”

The second game of the sweep occurred on Saturday, March 23rd. Southern Miss scored 11 of its runs with two outs, and the Golden Eagles cruised to a 14-4 victory over Old Dominion on Saturday afternoon. This win made it 10 wins in their last 11 games. Southern Miss also scored all of its runs in the first six innings. The 15 hits the team tallied were also a season-high after tallying 14 apiece against Louisiana Tech (on two separate occasions) and Purdue. So it looks like the Golden Eagles are finally finding their rhythm with the bats.

"We were able to keep the momentum in our dugout by scoring runs and getting two-out hits," head coach Scott Berry said. "We used a lot of pitchers and scattered a lot of hits, but we only allowed those four runs. I was happy with our approach to the plate and that our pitchers pitched to contact, and for the most part, we played real good defense. The story is definitely about our two-out RBIs.”

Coach Berry later gave high praise to the pitching aspect of the team. "We knew that with being down a starter with Stevie Powers, who has the ability to go deep into the game, we would have to piece this thing together a little bit," Berry said. "For our guys to do that and limit a real good hitting club, hitting at .296 coming in, to just four runs, that's pretty impressive. Cody has done a good job at helping us in relief all year.”

The Golden Eagles capped that win off and finished the sweep, with an impressive 9-0 shutout on Sunday. The Golden Eagles scored seven runs in the opening inning and never looked back. Six Golden Eagle pitchers contributed to shutting out the visiting Monarchs for a 9-0 victory at Pete Taylor Park, completing the three-game Conference USA sweep. The Golden Eagles (15-6 overall, C-USA) captured their 11th win over the past 12 games. This game marked the Golden Eagles’ eighth game in a row with a least 10 hits, as seven of the first eight batters reached base.

Redshirt Sophomore, Gabe Montenegro opened up the bottom of the first with a single, and junior Matthew Guidry followed up by connecting on his second home-run of the year. Guidry has been on a tear lately, as he currently has a hitting streak of 10 games. Hunter Slater has also been on a tear as of late, as he has 16 hits in his last 27 at bats (.592).

As midpoint in the season nears, the Golden Eagles are 15-6 with a 6-0 record in conference play. After the slow 4-5 start, the team is finally playing the Southern Miss baseball that the fans know they are very much capable of. Now the question is, how far can this team actually go? The sticks are going to fly and the team is going to score runs but a common question that comes up is if the team can overcome losing arguably its best pitcher in the last decade, Nick Sandlin. The team has a lot of young guys, as there are six freshman pitchers. However, Southern Miss also has a lot experience as there are five senior pitchers who can show the younger guys the ropes.

Even if the team isn't as ‘powerful’ as it was last season, the Golden Eagles are still a force to be reckoned with. No one is to take them lightly. The team is still favorites to win the conference. And although they are favorites to win the C-USA Championship, it has been pretty evident over the past few ears that isn't the ultimate goal for Coach Berry and the team. They have their eyes set on Omaha, and will are making sure they are doing everything they can, in preparation for the postseason. A deep post-season run is the hopes of fans, coaches, and players. It’s just all a matter of execution down the stretch for the Golden Eagles.

The team looks to keep its winning streak alive on Tuesday, as they face Nicholls on Tuesday afternoon at 6:30 P.M., at Zephyr Field.

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