Southern Miss pitcher Billy Oldham explains making spot start in Game 1 vs. Tennessee

Southern Miss pitcher Billy Oldham has pitched in many high leverage situations during his college career, and Game 1 of the Hattiesburg Super Regional versus Tennessee is just the latest example. But the Golden Eagles would usually role with ace pitcher Tanner Hall to start a series.

However, with the weather expected to be difficult and chaotic on Saturday, head coach Scott Berry went with Oldham.

Oldham pitched 4.1 innings before the game was postponed to Sunday. The Golden Eagles were up 4-0 at the time, but Oldman would be charged a run after a runner he allowed on base before the weather delay ended up scoring.

Southern Miss won the game, 5-3.

“I was really excited,” Oldman said on the ESPN broadcast after the game ended Sunday. “Tanner’s obviously the ace. He’s gonna get us most of the time the first game. But the way it turned out with the rain possibility and the rest that I got it. I was excited to go. Like you said, I’ve been in big games before…Not that I wasn’t nervous, definitely was, but felt good. Had all the stuff working. It’s easy to pitch like that when you have feel for your stuff that day.”

Billy Oldham says crowd at Pete Taylor Park is ‘unreal’

This is Billy Oldham’s first season with the Golden Eagles after two seasons at Division III Eastern Connecticut State.

He said the opportunity to play in front of the home fans at Pete Taylor Park has been great.

“It’s been awesome,” Oldham said. “We’ve been wanting to bring postseason baseball back to the Pete for a while now. Didn’t get to host the regional but…we knew if we got it back here we’d have so many fans. It’s just been an incredible experience. The crowd is just unreal.”

Southern Miss is also playing with the hopes of bringing the team to the College World Series for Scott Berry, who is retiring at the end of the season. The Golden Eagles haven’t been to Omaha since 2009, which was Corky Palmer‘s last season as head coach.

During that season, Palmer had announced prior to the postseason that it was going to be his last.

Berry, who was an assistant on that team, did the same thing this year.

“We’re doing it for coach,” Oldham said. “Coach Berry’s such a great man. He’s a great coach and we’re doing it for him. It’s his last ride and we want to make it the best we can.”