USM baseball’s Tate Parker adjusting back to Division I ranks

Southern Miss Outfielder Tate Parker isn’t the first player to transfer in from Pearl River Community College and he certainly won’t be the last.

In fact, his left field running mate Reece Ewing is another former Wildcat. But Parker is the first-ever National Champion from PRCC to join the Golden Eagles.

Parker started his college career at Dallas Baptist in 2020, now back in the Division I ranks in 2023 after a record-setting two years in Poplarville.

The former West Harrison Hurricane not only winning a natty, but also breaking the school’s all-time home run mark with 37 en route to winning NJCAA Division II Player of the Year.

In 2022, Parker led Pearl River in runs, hits, triples, homers, RBI, on-base percentage, slugging, OPS, and an eye-popping .450 batting average. “Everybody would love to be that guy, but it’s really hard to come in this level of baseball and just do the things that I did last year. But any impact I can have, I mean just being a good teammate is all I want to be this year. It’s a lot like Pearl River, just really blue collar and that’s the type of player I am, so coming up that’s the kind of program I wanted to be in, and it’s really an honor to be able to play here for Coach Berry now.”

Head Coach Scott Berry said, “A guy like Tate Parker, he’s had some really good at-bats for us this fall. The good ones continue to adjust. They continue to get stronger. In our program, we feel like the development and our strength and conditioning gives that edge as well.”

Parker says the biggest change he made this off-season was faster pitching off the machine.