By Stan Caldwell/Sports Writer

HATTIESBURG — Southern Miss didn’t have long to wait to hear its name called Monday morning when the NCAA announced its 64-team field for the upcoming Baseball Championships.

The Golden Eagles were among the four teams in the first regional announced, at the No. 1 overall seed Tennessee. USM (41-18) will battle Indiana (32-24-1) at noon Friday at Lindsey Nelson Stadium on the UT campus in Knoxville.

But whether the regional’s second-seeded team will take the field Friday with or without one of their biggest weapons remains to be seen.

Junior rightfielder Carson Paetow suffered an injury to his right hand against Texas State in USM’s final regular-season game on May 18, and he missed most of the Sun Belt Tournament last week at Montgomery, Alabama.

“I’m not sure what’s going on with it,” said Paetow. “We’re going to let it rest for this week after the conference tournament, but I don’t have any answers on whether I’ll be ready to play.”

Southern Miss head coach Christian Ostrander said Paetow’s injury is, “day-to-day,” but says he believes the former Vancleave standout will be able to go this weekend.

“We’re trying to let some inflammation go down, and improve his ability to grip the bat,” said Ostrander, who has Southern Miss back in the tournament for the eighth straight season in his first year at the helm after Scott Berry retired last year.

“It’s the bottom hand on the bat, up to the wrist. So, hopefully, it’ll calm down and he gets feeling better.”

Paetow did not start in any of the Golden Eagles’ four games at the SBC Tournament, but he did come in as a defensive replacement in Sunday’s championship game against Georgia Southern for sophomore Nick Monistere, who started in Paetow’s place.

And, as it turned out, USM didn’t need their co-captain to win the tournament championship.

The Golden Eagles eased past Coastal Carolina 5-0 in Tuesday’s opener, rallied to defeat Troy 6-5 on Wednesday, held off Appalachian State 7-5 in Saturday’s semifinal, and scored five runs in the top of the ninth to overcome GSU 14-11 in the final.

“So far, we’ve adjusted really well,” said senior Slade Wilks, another Golden Eagle captain Paetow and senior Matt Adams. “I mean, we did win without him.

“But (freshman) Seth Smith has moved back in the lineup, and has stepped right in and contributed, and that’s what you love to see in the young guys.”

While USM was successful without Paetow in the short term, no one says the Golden Eagles are better without him.

“He’s been a veteran, and we desperately want him back,” said Ostrander. “We want his presence back in there, for sure. “He’s got a lot of charisma; everybody loves his personality. He’s been a great Golden Eagle.

“He’s got great defensive ability, great offensive ability, leadership. I mean, he’s the whole package. He’s a team captain for a reason. He was voted by his peers, his teammates, as captain for a reason.”

Nevertheless, Southern Miss comes into the tournament as one of the nation’s hottest teams, with or without Paetow. The Golden Eagles have won 14 of their last 15, including six straight wins.

“I think we’re really putting the pieces together right now,” said Paetow. “Our bullpen, especially the back of our bullpen, has been really good. Our hitting hasn’t necessarily been bad throughout the year, but we weren’t getting the big hits early on.

“Now, we’ve finally figured it out. We’re getting guys in from scoring position, and our chemistry is through the roof.”

Paetow pretty much picked up in 2024 where he left off the previous two seasons as a key member of the Golden Eagles.

In 56 games out of the No. 5 spot in the batting order for most of the season, Paetow is batting .285 with 11 home runs, 11 doubles, 46 runs-batted-in and a team-high 43 walks. He also has a spotless fielding record, with three assists and no errors in 110 chances.

“It’s been a fun year, especially with this being Coach Oz’s first year as head coach,” said Paetow. “It’s been cool to be part of that.

“We’ve been a little up and down, but now we’re getting on a roll. Hopefully, we can keep it going in the postseason.”

In 2023, Paetow hit .269 with 12 doubles, three triples, four homers and 36 RBIs. In the NCAA Auburn Regional, he batted .316 (6 of 19) with four RBIs, earning All-Regional honors.

As a redshirt-freshman in 2022, he earned freshman All-America honors after batting .271, with 16 home runs, 15 doubles and he drove in 46 runs.

USM jumped on Paetow after a sensational junior season at Vancleave in 2019, after playing as a reserve during his sophomore season as the Bulldogs won the Class 4A state championship.

As a junior, Paetow hit .430 with nine doubles, four triples, five homers and 36 RBIs, earning a spot on both the Sun-Herald’s All-South Mississippi team and the Clarion-Ledger’s First Team All-State team.

“I think it was 2019 we got on him,” said Ostrander. “I know Coach (Travis) Creel liked him a lot. We made the push, made him an offer and we were able to get him, and he’s done a fabulous job,”

Paetow was off to another strong start in 2020 when the season was shut down in March due to the coronavirus quarentine. He hit .429 with 10 RBIs for the Bulldogs, who were off to a 7-4 when the season ended.

“I wasn’t worried about it,” said Paetow of his shortened senior season. “I had committed to USM in the fall of my senior year, in 2019, so I wasn’t worried about 2020. I didn’t have many offers, so when they offered me I was super excited.”

Although he redshirted as a true freshman in 2021, he still had a productive year playing summer ball with the Gainesville (Ga.) Braves of the Sunbelt League.

Paetow batted .286 in 31 at-bats in Gainesville, with nine doubles, four homers and 13 RBIs, and was named to the league’s all-star game.

Once he got the chance to start at USM in 2022, he took the job and hasn’t looked back.

“He’s probably one of my best friends on the team,” said Wilks. “He’s a guy who brings it every day. He hasn’t played the past couple of weeks, but he’s still in there encouraging everyone and motivating the younger guys.

“He’s staying ready, and hopefully we’ll have him back at some point.”

Although his focus was still with the Golden Eagles last week, Paetow still found time to follow his alma mater, as Vancleave rallied from a game down to capture its second state title, this one in Class 5A, over Lafayette.

“That was really cool,” said Paetow. “I made sure to text my old coaches as soon as I could to congratulate them. I was obviously rooting for them. They may not be the people I knew, but I know some of the young guys who were on that team.”

Paetow said the Golden Eagles are looking forward to playing at Tennessee, returning the regional visit after the Volunteers objected to coming to Hattiesburg for the Super Regional last season.

UT eliminated Southern Miss in the Super Regional in three games, winning after the Golden Eagles won the first game of the series.

“We’re excited about going to Knoxville for this regional,” said Paetow. “(Tennessee is)obviously a good ball club. It’s Division 1 baseball, any team can win or lose. We’re just happy to still be playing with a chance to go to the College World Series.”

But there is business to be attended to ahead of any rematch with Tennessee. At the time the pairings were announced, USM knew little if anything about Indiana, the Golden Eagles’ first-round opponent.

“I don’t know a thing about them,” said Ostrander. “But we’re going to start this afternoon and spend the next couple of days finding out as much as we can about them. I do know that all 64 teams in the tournament deserve to be there, so we have to be ready to play a good team.”

The Hoosiers finished 15-9 in Big Ten play, good for third place in the standings behind regular-season champion Illinois and tournament champ Nebraska. USM and IU had four common opponents this season: Indiana State, Troy, Coastal Carolina and Alabama.

Indiana split a home-and-home series with Indiana State, each team winning at home, while Southern Miss took two of three from the Sycamores at Pete Taylor Park in February.

Both teams played a weekend series against Troy, with the Hoosiers losing two of three at home, while the Golden Eagles took two of three at home in an SBC series in late March.

IU lost a tournament game to Coastal in February, while USM swept the Chanticleers in May, also at home, and the Golden Eagles also defeated Bama in a mid-season game at The Pete, while the Crimson Tide rolled over IU in the Frisco Classic in Texas on March 1.

“You’ve got to be mentally tough to weather the storm, whatever that looks like,” said Wilks. “Especially on the road, away from your home where you’re comfortable, it’s even more important.

“We’ll get to Tennessee when we get to Tennessee. We’ve got Indiana first. We don’t want the moment to get too big, but just go out and play Golden Eagle baseball.”

Northern Kentucky (35-22), making its first appearance in the NCAA Tournament, faces host Tennessee (50-11) in the other first-round game Friday. The winner of the Knoxville Regional is paired with the winner of the Greenville (N.C.) Regional in the Super Regionals June 7-10.

Paetow has one more year of eligibility at USM, but there is the matter of the Major League Baseball Draft that always complicates an upperclassman’s decision on whether to come back for that last year.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if that opportunity came for him,” said Ostrander. “You never know about some of that. He’s certainly deserving, if it’s not this year, there’s no doubt in my mind it would be next year.

“If he does come back, he’ll be the central figure in our lineup to build around, with a lot of experience coming back.”

For Paetow, the draft is well down the list of importance right now. His main concern is to get back in the lineup and help the Golden Eagles win the regional.

“I don’t know what that looks like, honestly,” Paetow said. “I try not to think about it. A lot of people get caught up in the draft, but from my point of view, we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”