What we learned from Southern Miss baseball's sweep vs Arkansas State, Sun Belt title chances

Southern Miss baseball is playing the best it has all season at just the right time.

The Golden Eagles (34-17, 18-9 Sun Belt Conference) swept Arkansas State to extend their winning streak to a season-long seven games. Southern Miss took Friday’s game 5-2, Saturday’s game 19-3 in seven innings and Sunday’s game 14-6. Southern Miss also moved to 12-0 all-time against Arkansas State (21-29-1, 7-19-1).

“They’ve really found some good rhythm,” Southern Miss coach Christian Ostrander said in his Sunday postgame radio interview. “The leadership has been great with the team. I feel like they’ve taken the reins and rolled with it and I’m just very proud of them.”

One week remains in the regular season with Southern Miss hosting Ole Miss on Tuesday (6 p.m., ESPN+) and Texas State for a three-game series beginning on Thursday (6 p.m., ESPN+).

Here’s what we learned from the series.

Southern Miss will need to keep outscoring Sunday pitching

Billy Oldham and Niko Mazza were both sharp again on the mound, combining for five earned runs across 12 innings on Friday and Saturday.

But this series was more evidence that Southern Miss doesn’t have strong enough pitching depth and must keep outscoring it when those two aren’t available. Cole Boswell was brilliant in his Sunday start last week, but was beaten for four runs in 2.1 innings by Arkansas State. Granted, Southern Miss has won Boswell’s last two starts, but it will be difficult to sustain when the competition picks up.

The good news is that Southern Miss’ offense has come alive. After this series, five players — Dalton McIntyre, Slade Wilks, Davis Gillespie, Ozzie Pratt and Matthew Russo — are all batting above .300. The five of them went 35-for-68 for a .515 batting average against Arkansas State.

Plus, starting second baseman Nick Monistere only needed to miss one game after he left the finale of the Coastal Carolina game last week with an injury.

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Southern Miss can still win a share of the Sun Belt title but needs help

Louisiana swept Georgia Southern to give the Ragin’ Cajuns a three-game lead over Southern Miss in the conference standings.

And because Louisiana won the series against Southern Miss two weeks ago, it has the tiebreaker. That means Southern Miss cannot earn the No. 1 seed in the Sun Belt Tournament.

The best it can do is obtain a share of the regular-season championship, which requires a Southern Miss sweep of Texas State and a South Alabama sweep of Louisiana.

The Golden Eagles are currently alone in second place after Troy (35-18, 17-10) lost its series to Texas State.

Slade Wilks continues to climb the record books and drive Southern Miss' offense

Wilks has two personal markers that were extended.

First is his hitting streak, that is now at 24 games, the sixth-best in team history and the longest since 2011. Todd Nace holds the record with a 41-game hitting streak set in 1991.

Wilks’ second chase at history is his career home run total, which is now at 45 after he hit two on Saturday and a third on Sunday. That's tied for the sixth-most in team history with Matt Wallner holding first place at 58.

It’s all culminated around Wilks, a senior from Columbia, Mississippi, becoming a more well-rounded batter. His batting average (.318), on-base percentage (.396) and slugging percentage (.596) are all career-highs. He leads Southern Miss in RBIs (53), home runs (13), OPS (.992), total bases (118) and slugging percentage. His 13 go-ahead RBIs and four go-ahead home runs are both the most on the team, and that’s after he slumped to a 2-for-22 start to the season.

Wilks went 7-for-14 in the series with two walks, three home runs, seven RBIs and seven runs.

“Really can’t ask for much more out of Slade,” assistant coach Travis Creel said on Wednesday. “More than anything, he’s healthy. Ever since he’s been on campus and he’s healthy, he plays good."

Sam Sklar is the Southern Miss beat reporter for the Hattiesburg American. Email him at ssklar@hattiesb.gannett.com and follow him on X @sklarsam_.

This article originally appeared on Hattiesburg American: Southern Miss baseball takeaways from series sweep of Arkansas State