Southern Miss Baseball Preview: Florida Atlantic Series battle between first and second

In the game of golf, the old adage says you can’t win a tournament on the first day, but you can certainly lose it. That same logic can be applied to the longevity of a college baseball season, and more specifically, the mentality of the Golden Eagles.
Heading into the weekend, first place Southern Miss has a one-game lead in Conference USA with Florida Atlantic right behind. That’s what makes USM’s series with the Owls such a next level match-up, as both teams have the chance to control their own destiny from here on out.
The Black and Gold haven’t taken a series from FAU since 2014 so the last part of this so-called golf tournament would be a good time to change that. Southern Miss Head Baseball Coach Scott Berry said, “It is because of where the standings are, but if you look at everything up to this point, really every game and every series has been big. We try to approach everything here at a game-by-game basis, we don’t try to get ahead of anything and look for something up the road. We try to concentrate on what’s the most important game on our schedule, and it happens to be tomorrow night against FAU.”
First pitch for game one is slated for 6 p.m. tomorrow from Pete Taylor Park in Hattiesburg. That’s normally when ace of the staff, Kirk McCarty, would be pitching, but he left last Friday’s game at Middle Tennessee with soreness in his throwing arm.
The good news is he’ll be back in the rotation this weekend, slotted in the Saturday spot for the 2 p.m. game. Junior right-hander Colt Smith is in line to make his first start of the season tomorrow.