Southern Miss ready to continue Opening Day tradition

When it comes to Opening Day baseball at Pete Taylor Park, life is almost always good.

Southern Miss has won seven straight season openers and 20 out of their last 21 opening series games, dating back to 2015.

Which brings us to the 2022 lead-off game against Northern Alabama, first pitch set for 4 p.m. tomorrow.

Start fast, finish strong is always the motto for USM and the Golden Eagles are notoriously fast starters, but its not finishing what they start that’s prevented the black and gold from getting back to a Super Regional since their 2009 run to Omaha.

Even still, five straight 40-win seasons and counting. Third baseman Danny Lynch said, “We definitely kind of have a sour taste in our mouth after last year, not really doing what we wanted to do at the end of the season. It was a good season, but not really what we wanted of it, so definitely motivates us a lot and that happened in the off-season. We’re really motivated and we had a really good off-season and now we’re just excited to make all that happen again this year.”

Head Coach Scott Berry said, “I mean they all start kind of running together and they’re all the same. It’s a long haul. It’s a long journey. From the point of August to where we are right now has been a marathon, but now it doesn’t turn into a sprint. It turns into another marathon. It’s just another leg of the journey, but it’s an important leg.”

The Golden Eagles ended the 2021 campaign with an overall record of 40-21, 22-9 in C-USA.