HATTIESBURG, Miss. -The Southern Miss baseball program and head coach Scott Berry announced today the 2010 baseball schedule highlighted by 30 home games at Pete Taylor Park.
“I think that we have a very balanced schedule this upcoming season,” Berry said. “We have a nice mix of home and road games against some quality competition.”
The 2010 season and the Scott Berry era at Southern Miss will begin on February 19 with eight game homestand including a three-game weekend series with both Northwestern State (Feb. 19-21) and LeMoyne College (Feb. 26-28). Along with the weekend series’ will be home mid-week games with Mississippi Valley (Feb. 24) and Louisiana Monroe (March 3).
While LeMoyne College and Northwestern State may not be schools that Golden Eagle fans are familiar with, they both boast quality programs. LeMoyne has been to four NCAA Tournaments, most recently in 2007, and Boyd’s World ranked their RPI at 120 last season.
Northwestern State has been a NCAA tournament participant three times and finished the 2009 campaign with RPI of 141. Both programs RPI compared with UAB (130), South Alabama (133), UCF (151) and UNO (160) at the end of the 2009 season.
The Golden Eagles hit the road for the first time for a weekend series at Louisiana Lafayette (March 5-7), before returning to Pete Taylor Park for a midweek contest with Troy (March 10) and a weekend series with Missouri State (March 12-14).
Missouri State is another quality program that Southern Miss fans may not be familiar with, the Bears have played in seven NCAA Tournaments and participated in the 2003 College World Series. Last season they posted a final RPI of 67.
Over spring break the black and gold will host UNO on March 16 before traveling to Louisiana Monroe on March 17, the only time of the season that Southern Miss has to play five games in a week, which had became the norm over the last two seasons with the new NCAA condensed schedule and unified start date. The NCAA added an extra week to the season this year to help schools from having to play so many midweek games.
Southern Miss will stay in Louisiana for the end of spring break as they travel to Louisiana Tech (March 19-21) for a weekend series.
On Tuesday, March 23 Southern Miss will travel to Pearl, Miss. to play Ole Miss at Trustmark Park before opening Conference USA play at UAB (March 23-26) and traveling to South Alabama for a midweek game (March 30).
Over Easter weekend, the Golden Eagles will welcome in St. Mary’s College for a Thursday through Saturday three game set (April 1-3) for their last non-conference weekend series.
St. Mary’s will travel to Hattiesburg from Moraga, California, which is near San Francisco.
On April 7, Southern Miss will travel to New Orleans to play the defending national champion LSU Tigers at Zephyr Stadium in the Wally Pontiff Jr. Classic, the game annually features over 12,000 fans at the New Orleans stadium.
C-USA play continues as UCF visits Hattiesburg (April 9-11) before the Golden Eagles hit the road for five games beginning with a single game at UNO (April 13) followed by a three game C-USA series at Marshall (April 16-18) and a single game at Ole Miss (April 20).
Houston visits for a weekend series (April 23-25) and South Alabama comes in for a midweek contest (April 28) before the black and gold travels to New Orleans to take on Tulane in a three game C-USA series.
Southern Miss returns to Trustmark Park to play Mississippi State on Wednesday May 5 and will host East Carolina May 7-9.
The trip to Houston will be come a familiar route for the team as they travel to Rice (May 14-16) only to return two weeks later as the University of Houston will host the 2009 C-USA Baseball Tournament.
Before travelling for the post season, Southern Miss will close out the regular season with Mississippi State at home on May 18 and the final C-USA series beginning on Thursday May 20 against Memphis.
The C-USA Tournament will begin on May 26 at The University of Houston with a new format this year featuring only six teams in pool play.
The NCAA post season will start on June 4 with the Regional Tournaments and the Super Regionals will start on June 11. The final College World Series inside Rosenblatt Stadium will begin on June 19.
2010 Opponents (Final 2009 RPI)
Ole Miss (14)
East Carolina (21)
Missouri State (67)
Mississippi State (89)
Louisiana Lafayette (91)
Louisiana Monroe (95)
Louisiana Tech (111)
South Alabama (133)
St Mary’s (135)
Northwestern State (141)
New Orleans (160)
Mississippi Valley (257)