Conference USA Baseball sent two teams to the 2022 NCAA Tournament. Southern Miss has advanced to the Super Regional Round.
Southern Miss
From start to finish, Southern Miss found themselves on a white-knuckled ride through the Hattiesburg Regional. The hosts were challenged right out of the gate, winning a 2-0 game over Army. Southern Miss then took a 6-2 lead into the ninth inning against 2-seed LSU before falling to the Tigers in extras. That sent Southern Miss to the loser’s bracket.
If anyone had the pitching depth to suffer an early loss and make it to a regional file, though, it had would have been Southern Miss. Sure enough, the Golden Eagles took down Kennesaw State 4-3 and won a revenge game against LSU on Sunday 8-4, setting up a winner-take-all finale on Monday.
Southern Miss drew first blood with a leadoff solo home run in the first before LSU broke through with a three-run bottom half of the inning to take the lead. The back and forth would pick up in the seventh inning until Southern Miss delivered the go-ahead and eventual game-winning run in the ninth.
By virtue of their regional victory and the elimination of national seed Miami, Southern Miss will host next week’s Super Regional, the first time doing so in program history. They’ll play a best-of-three series against Ole Miss, who won the Coral Gables Regional. The Rebs and the Eagles split their season series 1-1.
Louisiana Tech
Following their victory in the Conference USA Tournament, Louisiana Tech was awarded the No. 2 seed in the Austin regional. The Bulldogs took down Dallas Baptist in their opening game 12-5 and took host Texas to the wire in their second game. Tied 1-1 after six innings, Texas would pull ahead with a three-run seventh to send Louisiana Tech to an elimination game.
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Louisiana Tech jumped out to a 4-0 lead against 4-seed Air Force on Sunday before both bullpens started to falter and both sides poured on additional runs. Air Force would go on to win 9-7, eliminating Louisiana Tech from the tournament.
