USM, Tennessee super regional comes down to winner-take-all Game 3

After a long Saturday filled with multiple weather delays, Southern Miss had the chance to win two games in the same day Sunday to punch its ticket to the College World Series.

USM got halfway home in the double-header, which means the moment is still on the table for today.

A 4-0 lead heading into the top of the fourth inning with All-American ace Tanner Hall on the mound for Southern Miss for the right to got to Omaha had things lined up perfectly for USM.

Until they weren’t.

Tennessee exploded for a six-run crooked number en route to winning Game 2 of the Hattiesburg Super Regional 8-4.

On the bright side, the Black and Gold won Game 1 on Sunday with a 5-3 victory — the program’s first at Pete Taylor Park.

“The message is you win and go to Omaha, or you lose and your season is done,” said USM shortstop Dustin Dickerson. “We’ve been faced with this the past couple weeks. We’ve had many opportunities to fold and go home and we’ve yet to do that, and I expect the group to be ready to play tomorrow.”

USM coach Scott Berry said the ultimate goal is Omaha.

“There’s eight sites with two teams in these Supers that are trying to be one of eight, and obviously, the goal is to be where we are right now, but the ultimate goal is to get to that next step” Berry said. “And last year we were here and we saw the wall and we weren’t able to knock it over, and this year we’re one win away from knocking that wall over.”

Hall said he and his teammates know what they have to do.

“Just the Southern Miss way, we’re brothers and we know what it takes to win, and I feel like that’s why this program is so good because we do what it takes to win, and when we come after a tough loss, we come back out and we’re fighting, and that just shows what we did in regionals in the past, and even this regional we just played in is that we fight and I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else,” Hall said. “This is my home I feel like, and I feel like they took me in and developed me into the best that I could be, and I think that’s amazing.”

Win or lose in Monday’s winner-take-all Game 3, Berry’s final game at The Pete will be for the right to go to Omaha. Game time is 5 p.m. on ESPN.