FROM CBD NEWS SOURCE
(Courtesy of Southern Miss Media Relations)
The Golden Eagles, which shared the Conference USA regular season title last spring and reached the league’s tournament championship game, looks to go back to the postseason after a two-year absence.
Southern Miss opens the 2014 campaign against America East member Stony Brook, just two years removed from their magical journey to the College World Series, at Pete Taylor Park/Hill Denson Field, Friday, Feb. 14, for the first of three games.
The Seawolves missed making the postseason last season, but 11 teams on the Golden Eagles’ schedule, which encompasses 24 of their 56-game slate went to the NCAA Tournament last spring. Southern Miss will entertain six of those schools at The Pete this spring including Louisiana-Lafayette (Feb. 21-23), Alabama (Feb. 26), Troy (Feb. 28-March 2), South Alabama (March 12), C-USA newcomer UTSA (March 21-23) and Rice (April 25-27). The Owls come back to Pete Taylor Park for the second consecutive season.
Other home games for the Golden Eagles include single contests against Alcorn State (Feb. 19), ULM (Mar. 18) and New Orleans (Apr. 1), along with C-USA series against Middle Tennessee (Apr. 4-6), Louisiana Tech (Apr. 18-20) and East Carolina (May 9-11).
Southern Miss also faces 2013 postseason participants Florida in Pensacola at Bayfront Stadium (Mar. 4), Ole Miss in Pearl at Trustmark Park (Mar. 25) and in Oxford (Apr. 30), at South Alabama (Apr. 2), Mississippi State in Pearl (Apr. 8), LSU at Zephyr Field for the annual Wally Pontiff, Jr., Classic (Apr. 16), Alabama (Apr. 22) and a league series at Florida Atlantic (Mar. 28-30).
The Golden Eagles also play single road tilts at ULM (Feb. 18), New Orleans (Mar. 11), and travel to Columbia, Mo., for a three-game series at SEC foe Missouri, along with league road trips to Marshall (Mar. 14-16) in Charleston, W.Va., UAB (Apr. 11-13), Tulane (May 2-4) and Charlotte (May 15-17).
The Conference USA season will culminate in Hattiesburg for the 2014 C-USA Baseball Championship, May 21-25. The tournament will return to its two-bracket, double-elimination format for this year’s event hosted by the Golden Eagles. Southern Miss last hosted the event in 2009, reaching the championship game before falling to Rice for the league tournament title. The Golden Eagles, though, went on to its first College World Series appearance that year.
