Southern Miss Regional Preview

For better or worse, three of the teams in the Hattiesburg regional are all pretty familiar with one another, but there’s still one other school that has everyone guessing.
USM’s first opponent is the University of Illinois-Chicago, whose mascot is the Flames. They’re the first Horizon League team Southern Miss has played since 2015 when the Golden Eagles lost two of three to Oakland at Pete Taylor Park.
This weekend, UIC has a similar element of surprise on its side and that works against every team in the regional. Needless to say, the Black and Gold still have quite a bit of scouting left to do. Southern Miss Pitcher Kirk McCarty said, “We’ve got to get past Illinois-Chicago first, a team that Coach Berry just mentioned we know really nothing about. So we’ll do our research this week and try to get as much information as we can and get ready to win that first one cause that’s obviously the most important one right now for us.”
Southern Miss Head Baseball Coach Scott Berry said, “Sixty-four people trying to be one of the eight standing in Omaha, so we’re familiar with Mississippi State as they are with us. Same way with South Alabama. We’ll scramble to get reports on Illinois-Chicago just like they will on us, but it’s a great field of four that I feel like will certainly provide a lot of entertainment for everybody in Hattiesburg.”
Southern Miss, Mississippi State, and South Alabama have played one another a total of six times in 2017.
Here’s a closer look at how USM stacks up against not only the teams in the Hattiesburg regional, but the NCAA tournament as well.
The Black and Gold are 3-0 versus the Bulldogs and Jaguars and also took down Southeastern Louisiana at MGM Park earlier this month.
The Eagles took two of three from Xavier, back in March and Rice won the Conference USA Tournament title game, but Southern Miss won the regular series in Houston.