Southern Miss baseball predictions for Hattiesburg Regional in NCAA Tournament
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Southern Miss baseball enters the NCAA Tournament as the No. 9 overall seed and will host a Hattiesburg Regional for the second season in a row.
The No. 1 seed Golden Eagles (44-15) open with No. 4 seed Little Rock (36-26) on May 29 (1 p.m. CT, ESPN+) at Pete Taylor Park. No. 2 seed Virginia (36-21) and No. 3 seed Jacksonville State (46-13) will play at 6 p.m.
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Since coach Christian Ostrander took over the program three seasons ago, Southern Miss has not missed an NCAA Tournament. The Golden Eagles hosted a regional last season, but lost its opening game to Columbia and couldn't make it out of the losers' bracket.
Southern Miss will hope for a more favorable outcome this time around.
Here is what to know about the Hattiesburg Regional and the teams playing in it.
Hattiesburg Regional is super strong
The NCAA selection committee did Southern Miss no favors when it was putting together the tournament bracket. The Hattiesburg Regional will be a challenging one to win.
Virginia, Jacksonville State and Little Rock are all top-90 teams in the RPI rankings. Only the regional in Chapel Hill, Lawrence and College Station can match it.
When you take all four teams in Southern Miss' regional and average out their RPI ranks, Hattiesburg has an average ranking of 38, making it the second most difficult in the field. Lawrence's average RPI ranking is 37, making it the most challenging by this metric.
The least challenging is the Auburn Regional, which has an average RPI ranking of 82.
Pete Taylor Park provides a true home field advantage
Southern Miss went 23-5 at home this season and boasts one of the best winning percentages in the country.
The Golden Eagles have not lost a game at home since a 5-1 defeat to Southeastern Louisiana on March 31. Since that loss, they have won 11 straight at Pete Taylor Park, including three series sweeps of Sun Belt Conference opponents.
Despite the atmosphere that Pete Taylor Park consistently delivers, the Golden Eagles have only won one of the four previous regionals they have hosted. They lost in 2003, 2017 and 2025 and won in 2022.
Little Rock has ace pitcher in Brannon Westmoreland
Brannon Westmoreland of Little Rock has a 6-2 record with a 3.00 ERA across 93 innings thrown.
It will likely be Westmoreland getting the start against Southern Miss in the opener. He started against Southern Indiana on May 20, throwing 93 pitches and then made a bullpen appearance on May 23 against Eastern Illinois, an outing in which he threw 32 pitches and allowed just one hit.
The right-hander was named to the Ohio Valley Conference second team. He posted a complete game shutout at Lindenwood on April 24, allowing no runs on six hits and striking out five batters. In his next appearance on May 1 against Morehead State, he went seven innings, allowed zero runs and struck out 10.
Virginia features explosive offense
Virginia's offense is among the best in the country. The Cavaliers are No. 30 in runs per game, averaging eight runs per contest. They have scored 453 runs this season so far.
The lineup has quality bats throughout, but junior center fielder AJ Garcia leads the pack. Garcia is hitting .338 with 14 home runs, 42 RBIs, an SLG of .616 and an OPS of 1.095.
Garcia is listed as the No. 11 draft prospect by MLB.com.
Jacksonville State wins. A lot.
Jacksonville State finished the season 46-13 and is tied with Georgia for the third most wins of any team in the country.
The Gamecocks swept straight through the Conference USA Tournament, beating Liberty, No. 32 in RPI, to win the title. Jacksonville State's No. 112 most difficult strength of schedule which is something to note, but winning 46 games is impressive regardless of who you are playing.
Some of Jacksonville State's best wins include two over Auburn (No. 3 RPI). The first one was a 15-4 run-rule win at Auburn on April 7 and the second was a 4-1 victory on May 12. The Gamecocks also beat Cincinnati (No. 22) 1-0 on Feb. 15. They played Alabama twice during the regular season and lost both games by one run.
Jacksonville State is widely considered to be one of the best three-seeds in the bracket.
Prediction
Southern Miss will beat Jacksonville State to win the regional and advance to the super regional. The starting rotation is as good as anyone in the country right now and its bullpen proved to be able to handle high-leverage situations in the Sun Belt Tournament. Jacksonville State's offense will test the Golden Eagles, but Southern Miss is the more balanced and more talented team.
Hattiesburg Regional schedule
All times CT
Friday, May 29
Game 1: No. 1 Southern Miss vs. No. 4 Little Rock, 1 p.m. CT, ESPN+.
Game 2: No. 2 Virginia vs. No. 3 Jacksonville State, 6 p.m., ESPN+.
Saturday, May 30
Game 3: Loser of Game 1 vs. Loser of Game 2, 3 p.m., TBD
Game 4: Winner of Game 1 vs. Winner of Game 2, 8 p.m., TBD
Sunday, May 31
Game 5: Winner of Game 3 vs. Loser of Game 4, 4 p.m., TBD
Game 6: Winner of Game 4 vs. Winner of Game 5, 8 p.m., TBD
Sunday, June 1
Game 7 (If necessary): Rematch of Game 6, TBD
Davis Wilson covers Southern Miss athletics and Hattiesburg news for the Hattiesburg American. Email him at [email protected] or find him on X at @Davis_Wilson.
This article originally appeared on Hattiesburg American: Southern Miss baseball baseball prediction for NCAA Tournament regional