No. 8 Southern Miss at Old Dominion: 'Hyper Focus' Hitting, Pitching Matchups, More

For a team that is currently ranked No. 8 in the nation, it's no secret that the Southern Miss baseball team hasn't been living up to that status lately, having gone 6-6 over its last 12 games. The coaches and players would be the first ones to tell you that. However, the talent is there, and the Golden Eagles earned the benefit of the doubt from the national media by front-loading their schedule and racking up several big wins over high-quality opponents early.

After falling to Southeastern Louisiana in Tuesday night's 5-1 loss at Pete Taylor Park, the Golden Eagles are in Norfolk, Va., on Thursday, looking to bounce back into the win column as they begin their early weekend series against Old Dominion. Coming into this Sun Belt Series, Southern Miss has a 21-8 (5-4) record, whereas Old Dominion is 13-15 (3-6).

Weekend Pitching Matchups

On Friday, sophomore LHP Grayden Harris (4-1, 3.58 ERA) will take the mound for Southern Miss. He will be facing ODU junior RHP Darin Kuskie (2-4, 9.82 ERA).

For Saturday, it will be sophomore RHP Camden Sunstrom on the bump for the Golden Eagles. Sunstrom is coming off a career-high eight strikeouts in five innings pitched on Saturday against App State. The Monarchs will be pitching junior RHP JJ Gatti (0-3, 5.06 ERA).

The Golden Eagles' starter for Sunday is still to be determined. The Monarchs will go with junior RHP Nick Sulpizio (1-1, 8.40 ERA).

Statistically speaking, at least from a pitching standpoint, the Golden Eagles should have a very good chance to secure their third Sun Belt series win of the year. However, the bats will need to show up to make sure that happens.

Eags Need 'Hyper-Focused' At-Bats

USM Joey Urban — Joe Harper / bngphoto.com

After beating App State 13-4 on Sunday, the Golden Eagles thought maybe that was the game that would get their offense rolling consistently again. However, that performance was followed by Tuesday's loss to SELA, where USM only plated one run and left 10 runners on base. Head coach Christian Ostrander is tying to simplify the plate approach for his players.

"If there was a drill we could do to make that happen, we'd be doing it all the time," Coach Oz told SuperTalk Eagle Hour during his Monday segment when asked about the team's hitting consistency struggles.

"It's hyper focus, it's resiliency, it's just grinding out at-bats, taking your singles. You know, simplifying it," Coach Oz said. "That's stuff we're talking about, and that's stuff we're working on with these young men, who are amateurs; they're not professionals. They're not gonna be perfect all the time. We're kinda trying to simplify it and condense instead of making it more complicated and seeing too much.

How to Watch

The Golden Eagles will get things started against the Monarchs at the Bud Metheny Baseball Complex at 5 p.m. on Thursday. On Friday, they'll play at 2 p.m., and on Saturday, they'll wrap up the series early at 11 a.m. You can watch all of the games this weekend on ESPN+.

Although the Golden Eagles would settle for a series win, it's starting to feel like they need a few weekend sweeps if they want to keep their chances of hosting a regional alive in this second half of the season. We'll see if Southern Miss can finally string together consecutive games with both good hitting and pitching. Stay tuned to Southern Miss Golden Eagles On SI for more coverage thoughout the weekend.