Tuesday night’s midweek battle between Mississippi State and Southern Miss will be a top-10 matchup, according to the latest rankings from D1Baseball.
The Golden Eagles (10-1) cracked the top 10 for the first time this season after notching a second consecutive weekend sweep. The team landed at No. 10 in the weekly poll.
Southern Miss, after run-ruling Alabama on Tuesday, traveled one state over to battle against a former conference foe in Louisiana Tech. Christian Ostrander’s bunch took care of business in the weekend series, outscoring the Bulldogs 25-5 in enemy territory. Sunday’s 6-2 victory was extra special for the black and gold as it marked Ostrander’s 100th career win as a head coach. He is the quickest in program history to accomplish the feat.
Mississippi State (11-1) had a chance to potentially take the top spot in the poll, but instead held tightly to its No. 4 spot after a mostly successful venture in the Amegy Bank College Baseball Series in Arlington, Texas.
Brian O’Connor’s club proved solid on Friday and Saturday, ousting Arizona State and Virginia Tech, before going toe-to-toe with the nation’s top-ranked UCLA Bruins. The Bulldogs were on the wrong side of fortune in a one-run extra-innings loss. Even with the loss to UCLA, Mississippi State is off to its best start since 2015.
Now, a perfect storm has been set up: a red-hot Southern Miss club will look to get a top-five win as Mississippi State will look to get back in the win column when the two teams square off Tuesday night in Hattiesburg. First pitch is set for 6 p.m. with ESPN+ and participating SuperTalk Mississippi stations handling the broadcast.
After that, the Golden Eagles will take on Nicholls on Wednesday before hosting North Alabama over the weekend. The Bulldogs will return to Dudy Noble Field to host Lipscomb over the weekend.
In Oxford, Ole Miss (10-2) dropped out of the rankings after previously being at No. 25. The Rebels lost two of three games – one to Baylor and the other to then-No. 9 Coastal Carolina – in the Bruce Bolt College Classic in Houston. Mike Bianco’s club did notch a win over Ohio State as part of the tournament. They return to action with midweek matchups against Memphis on Tuesday and North Alabama on Wednesday before hosting Evansville this weekend.
The full top 25 can be found below:
- UCLA
- LSU
- Texas
- Mississippi State
- Georgia Tech
- Arkansas
- Auburn
- North Carolina
- Florida
- Southern Miss
- Georgia
- Oklahoma
- NC State
- Clemson
- Wake Forest
- Coastal Carolina
- TCU
- Oregon State
- Tennessee
- Florida State
- Kentucky
- Texas A&M
- West Virginia
- Miami
- Texas San Antonio