This certainly wasn’t the way Southern Miss envisioned the final stages of the season playing out.
After running roughshod over Conference USA and climbing into the top 15 of some national polls, the Golden Eagles have hit a rough patch in the homestretch. They lost two out of three games to Louisiana Tech last weekend, then fell 14-9 to New Orleans on Tuesday.

It’s the first time Southern Miss has lost back-to-back games this season.

Southern Miss (36-15, 20-6 Conference USA) still only needs one win over last-place Marshall (19-28, 7-19) this weekend to secure the C-USA regular-season title, but its confidence and NCAA Tournament seeding might have taken a ding with the recent slump.

USM’s RPI ranking, which is a major factor in determining NCAA Tournament selections and seeding, has fallen 16 spots to No. 48 in the past week.

“We have to pick it up and go to Marshall in a tough environment up there, which is basically no environment, and win a conference championship and do more,” Southern Miss coach Scott Berry said in a postgame press conference after the loss to New Orleans. “It’s not just about winning a conference championship. We’ve got to do more. I feel like we certainly have a bigger picture in store, but we’re going to have to work awfully hard to get it.”

Southern Miss’ slump has been a total team effort. The bullpen blew a four-run lead last Friday against Louisiana Tech, and the entire staff was knocked around Sunday against the Bulldogs and Tuesday against New Orleans.

Southern Miss used seven pitchers both Sunday and Tuesday, and has given up 32 runs in its three recent losses.

At the plate, the Golden Eagles have struck out 31 times and left 29 runners on base in the three losses. Berry said a lack of timely production was especially frustrating in Tuesday’s loss.

“What I was disappointed with was we leave 13 runners on, we strike out to end an inning with the bases loaded, and we have the bases loaded with nobody out and we don’t get a run. But then we answer in the bottom of the first with six runs and we get one in the second and one in the third and then we shut it down,” Berry said. “We try to compare it to a boxing mentality and you have to stay in the middle of the ring and we did, then they pushed our back to the ropes and we stayed there.”

Now the Golden Eagles have to recover their wits before heading to Marshall and then the postseason. Southern Miss will be the No. 1 seed in the Conference USA Tournament next week in Biloxi if it wins one of three games this weekend.

Another series loss and a poor showing next week might not only end its conference title hopes, but could send it sliding down the list of NCAA Tournament teams as well.

“We talk about adversity all year and how you answer back shows the character of your team. We’ve been challenged. Coaches have challenged us. We’ve got accept it and go all out this weekend, and do everything we can to win all three,” USM third baseman Luke Reynolds said. “It’s huge. We have to win one to get the conference championship, but we’re not looking for one. We’re looking for the sweep.”

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The Hattiesburg American contributed to this story.