Southern Miss dominate Mississippi State in opening series

On Friday, the Southern Miss baseball team exorcised the demons of last year’s regional disappointment with an 11-0 shutout victory over Mississippi State, but the revenge tour didn’t stop there.
The Golden Eagles took down the Bulldogs by the count of 7-4 in game two and then delivered the knockout blow with a 5-2 triumph in game three.
Leading the charge was MSU transfer Luke Reynolds, who went 6-10 with six runs and 5 RBIs, as well as a homer and a swipe.
The series sweep is USM’s fourth consecutive to start a season and it’s first against an SEC opponent since 2013 versus Missouri. Consider the rest of the college baseball world on notice. “I have no words for it, just I enjoyed every single minute of that,” said Reynolds.
Southern Miss Head Coach Scott Berry said, “Everybody wants to bring in last year, last year is gone. I mean, man, it ain’t coming back. And what I was so proud of our guys is that we did not focus on this series as it’s Mississippi State, we approached it as an opportunity to play an opponent and win a game of baseball.”
The Black and Gold made good use of that home series before playing their next nine games on the road. It’s longest swing of the season.
Now, the Golden Eagles made quite a statement over the weekend and they’ve made a big splash in today’s rankings as a result. Their biggest leap came in the collegiate baseball poll, going from number 25 all the way up to 13.
D1Baseball.com pits the Black and Gold at number 15 after having them unranked to start the season. Finally, they see a four spot jump from 21-17 in Baseball America’s publication.
Conference USA hitter of the week goes to Reynolds. Nick Sandlin takes home the like for pitching. He threw seven shutout innings with nine strikeouts in his first career start.
In the SEC, two Ole Miss pitchers get the nod with the honors going to Ryan Rolison in baseball and Harrison Central alum Kaitlin Lee in softball.