Southern Miss clinched the Conference USA championship and the No. 1 seed in next week’s C-USA tournament with a come-from-behind 9-4 win at Middle Tennessee State in Murfreesboro on Thursday.
It’s the Golden Eagles’ fourth outright regular-season league title in program history and their third in the last five seasons. They’ve also been league co-champs twice.
No. 17 Southern Miss (39-14, 21-7 C-USA) is leaving Conference USA for the Sun Belt after this season.
Winning the regular-season crown flew under the radar for Southern Miss coach Scott Berry.
“I didn’t know we had won the regular-season championship when I met with (the team) or else I would’ve congratulated them,” Berry said during his postgame radio interview. “(But) we’ve got a bigger goal and we’ve got to keep our sights on it.”
The Golden Eagles, hosting the Conference USA Tournament at Pete Taylor Park in Hattiesburg for the first time since 2016, are expected to open against No. 8 seed UAB at 4 p.m. Wednesday in the first round.
Down 4-3 after five innings, left-handed hitting Slade Wilks led off the sixth inning with an opposite-field solo home run to tie things up. Five batters later, Gabe Montenegro delivered a two-strike, two-out, go-ahead, two-run single to put Southern Miss ahead for good.
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Bullpen steadies the ship
Southern Miss ace Tanner Hall (7-2), who hasn’t won since April 22, labored through 4⅓ innings, allowing four runs (two earned) on seven hits and three hit batsmen.
But Matt Adams and Garrett Ramsey came to the rescue, holding the Blue Raiders to one hit and no runs over the final 4⅔ innings.
Gabe Montenegro charging
Montenegro, Southern Miss’ super senior centerfielder, finished Thursday’s game with two hits, giving him 306 in his career. Prior to Friday’s game, the native of Guatemala was third all-time in hits, one behind Golden Eagle great Brian Dozier and needed 22 more to break Trey Sutton’s school record of 327.
Reach sports writer Jason Munz at jason.munz@commercialappeal.com or on Twitter @munzly.