Southern Miss baseball season projected to inject $10,000,000 into Hattiesburg economy through home games at Pete Taylor Park

Pete Taylor Park, home to the Southern Miss Golden Eagles baseball team, is all set to witness a massive inflow from the local economy as the Southern Miss baseball season games get underway.

According to Visit Hattiesburg, every USM game at Pete Taylor Park will infuse nearly $300,000 into the Hub City economy. There are 31 games on the calendar, which means close to $10 million will be injected this season.

“What that means is, when we’ve taken a conservative look at the numbers, that’s just accounting for about 25 percent of everybody here as visitors and the visiting team, so it can, of course, be upwards of $10 million quite easily for that, just for regular season play,” said Marlo Dorsey who is Visit Hattiesburg's chief executive officer/executive director.

As per Dorsey, three games of the NCAA Super Regional last season brought in more than $3 million at Pete Taylor Park. Moreover, back in 2022, the ballpark hosted the Conference USA Baseball Tournament, an NCAA Regional, and an NCAA Super Regional, resulting in an economic infusion of nearly $20 million per Visit Hattiesburg.

Southern Miss won its season opener over Marist College

The first of the three-game series between Marist College and Southern Miss took place on Friday, which the Golden Eagles won 4-1. Christian Ostrander won his first game as the Golden Eagles head baseball coach.

Carson Paetow, a Vancleave native, and junior Ozzie Pratt both had two RBIs. Starter Niko Mazza and reliever Colby Allen pitched exceptionally well, allowing no earned runs on seven hits while striking out 13 and walking one.

Interestingly, every run scored by the Golden Eagles was either driven in through a walk or hit by pitch. Marist's starter, Tyler Hartley, allowed two hits and three walks but hit three batters in his four innings. Only Marco Ali of Marist could hit for extra bases.

The two teams will battle again on Saturday at 6 p.m. at Pete Taylor Park.