USM baseball picked to win C-USA

The Southern Miss baseball program is pretty familiar with a championship Sunday of their own, having won three out of the last four Conference USA Tournament titles and the last two in Biloxi.

That recent dominance has the Golden Eagles picked as front-runners to win C-USA, according to the league’s pre-season poll released earlier today.

A lot of respect for a USM ball club that just lost Matt Wallner to the MLB first year player draft after raking a school-record 58 home runs.

Nonetheless, the Golden Eagles are coming off their fourth straight 40 win season and appear to be reloaded for another crack at the title behind their three All Conference USA selections.

Southern Miss is one of just two teams in the league with three players chosen, starting with last year’s league leader in ERA senior right hander Walker Powell. He’s joined by fellow senior Matthew Guidry, who led the team with a .557 on-base percentage to go along with All-Tournament team honors from the Baton Rouge Regional.

Last but not least, junior outfielder Gabe Montenegro who paced the Golden Eagles with a .342 batting average and then led all of Conference USA in sacrifice hits and runs scored.