Why Southern Miss baseball is suddenly dangerous in NCAA tournament after winning Sun Belt
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — First-year Southern Miss baseball coach Christian Ostrander admits the end of April was a turning point in the season.
Starting pitcher Will Armistead had just gone down with a season-ending injury and the Golden Eagles promptly lost a road series at Louisiana. It dropped their record to 27-17 and 12-9 in Sun Belt Conference play. Southern Miss was winning most of its series, but not sweeping them. The NCAA tournament wasn’t in serious doubt, but there were ideas that it just might not be the Golden Eagles’ year.
Since then, Southern Miss is 14-1 and has a 41-18 record. It’s one loss was a strange game against Texas State that was suspended due to weather and had to be restarted the next day.
It’s been a team that’s often been compared to last season’s squad that was one win away from the College World Series. This season’s Southern Miss team just ran through the Sun Belt Conference tournament without a loss — which the 2023 team didn’t do — after beating Georgia Southern 14-11 in Sunday’s championship game. And suddenly, Southern Miss looks as dangerous as ever entering the NCAA regionals.
Southern Miss' bullpen has been the key
Second-seeded Southern Miss allowed an ugly 11 runs to fifth-seeded Georgia Southern (33-26) in the championship game. Seven of those runs came from the bullpen after Cole Boswell was rocked for four runs via three homers in the first inning.
Take a step back though, and there’s still plenty of promise with Southern Miss’ bullpen.
The relief arms entered the championship game with a 1.13 ERA in the previous 10 games. Until Sunday, they hadn’t allowed an earned run all week.
“As a pitching coach, I just want consistency,” Ostrander said. “I want to know what I can get and these guys have been doing that.”
At the forefront is Colby Allen, who was a seldomly used freshman with a 11.57 ERA last season. He’s now Southern Miss’ bonafide closer with a 3.73 ERA. He hasn’t allowed an earned run in 10.1 innings dating back to May 5, and also has five of his seven season saves during that span.
Allen pitched in three of the four conference tournament games, earning the win in two of them and a save in the other. He was named the tournament MVP.
“Colby Allen, he’s just an animal,” Ostrander said. “He’s a competitor. He wants the ball always.”
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True freshman Josh Och has been a standout too. He had pitched just once before April 12 and has now allowed just two runs in 14.2 innings.
The list goes on with other relievers who have stepped up since the Louisiana series: JB Middleton, Ben Riley Flowers and Chandler Best to name a few.
“Our offense is putting up runs and we got a pretty good bullpen so it’s pretty hard to beat us,” Allen said. “That’s the ingredients of a good club is a good bullpen.”
Southern Miss is winning close games
Although Southern Miss didn’t lose a game in the Sun Belt tournament, it was no cake walk.
The Golden Eagles were losing in the eighth inning against Troy and Georgia Southern and were tied in the eighth with Coastal Carolina. They outscored those three teams 13-0 from the eighth inning and beyond.
Southern Miss was 2-13 when trailing after seven innings before the Sun Belt tournament.
“A bloop, a bloop and a blast, that’s all we need,” Matthew Russo said after going 3-for-5 with 2 RBIs on Sunday.
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: Why Southern Miss baseball will be dangerous in NCAA tournament
