Southern Miss Watch Party: NCAA regionals announced Monday

After being overlooked as a regional host last year, the Southern Miss baseball team didn’t leave anything to chance in 2017. The Golden Eagles ripped off 14 consecutive wins to close out the regular season and followed that up with a second place showing in the Conference USA Tournament.
Last night, the NCAA revealed Hattiesburg as one of 16 host sites for the first time since 2003. The only thing left to do was make a guest list for Pete Taylor Park which was announced this morning on Selection Monday. Joining the Golden Eagles in the Hub City are Mississippi State, South Alabama, and Illinois-Chicago.
For the second year in a row, USM held its watch party at Mugshots where players and coaches celebrate the tournament’s first return trip to Hattiesburg in 14 years. USM First baseman Dylan Burdeaux said, “We obviously thought we were going to get the host site, but it was still an awesome feeling when we all kind of got together and watched the Facebook Live and it was still an awesome feeling to see our name pop up.”
Southern Miss Pitcher Kirk McCarty said, “We were almost late getting the Facebook Live up. It was a real short, quick, brief announcement and we were excited. It’s something that we thought we deserved, and we were excited that the committee thought so as well.”
Southern Miss Head Coach Scott Berry said, “Been 14 years since we’ve had one and it was a great time in ’03 and the program has come a long way since then. That was kind of where everything kind of started in all honesty back then, so very grateful to have this opportunity, to have it back in Hattiesburg and certainly don’t take it lightly.”
The only other time the Eagles hosted a regional they were a two seed behind top-seeded Baylor.
This year, Southern Miss is a bona fide one seed. The competition isn’t too shabby either although players and coaches say they don’t know much about UIC, out of the Horizon League.
USM will play the first game at 1 p.m. Friday followed by Mississippi State and South Alabama at 6 o’clock that same night.
The Black and Gold beat MSU once and USA twice this season, although the Jags were the team that knocked USM out of the Tallahassee Regional in 2016.