The Little Rock Trojans baseball team will return to the NCAA regional tournament for the second year in a row, creating a familiar situation for coach Chris Curry in more ways than one.
The Trojans will travel to Hattiesburg, Miss. where they will face regional host and No. 1 seed Southern Miss in an opening round game Friday. Little Rock will be joined in the regional by No. 2 seed Virginia and No. 3 seed Jacksonville (Ala.) State. 2026 marks the second year in a row in which the Trojans won the Ohio Valley Conference tournament, granting Little Rock an automatic entry into postseason play after beating Eastern Illinois 10-6 in the OVC championship Sunday.
The trip to Mississippi will represent a sort of baseball homecoming for Curry, who notched his 300th victory as the Trojans’ coach with Sunday’s victory. A graduate of Conway High School, Curry played for two seasons as a catcher at Meridian (Miss.) Community College before transferring to Mississippi State. Curry would later return to Meridian as the program’s head coach. Two of his coaches at Meridian, Scott Berry and the late Corky Palmer, would resurface at Southern Miss, turning the Golden Eagles into a mid-major baseball powerhouse and annual post-season fixture.
Curry said Monday that only his father had a greater impact on his baseball career than Palmer and Berry.
“I’m fighting to not get emotional,” Curry said following Monday’s bracket reveal. “Scott Berry and Corky Palmer, they built Southern Miss. And the first thing I’m going to do is have breakfast with Coach Berry. These guys (players) don’t even know it, but almost everything we do offensively, coaching and stuff, comes from Coach Scott Berry at Meridian Junior College.”
In a further twist, Southern Miss is now coached by Christian Ostrander, who broke into Division I college coaching as a pitching coach and recruiting coordinator for Trojans rival Arkansas State.
Connecting with old mentors was the furthest thing from Curry’s mind the day before, as the Trojans had to overcome a 6-1 deficit to capture the OVC title, scoring eight runs in the seventh inning. Red-shirt freshman right-hander Tag Andrews of Maumelle took tournament Most Valuable Player honors, earning the win Sunday with 1.2 innings of relief.
“This week, as a pitching staff, we kind of started using the quote ‘burn the boats,’” Andrews said, alluding to the “all hands on deck” approach required for Little Rock’s pitching staff to notch six victories over five days. “Everybody’s got to buy in, everyone’s got to pitch in, everyone’s got to get the outs when you need the outs. (Pitching coach Evan) Lee just really had us all prepared mentally to go out there and lay it all on the line.”
Joining Andrews on the all-tournament team are graduate infielder Nico Baumbach, junior infielder Jerdy Lopez, junior infielder Blake Simpson, senior right-hander Brody Bunting and senior infielder Cooper Chaplain.
Monday marked the first time in history Little Rock has claimed back-to-back regional appearances. Last season, the Trojans traveled to Baton Rouge, La. for regional play and became one of the top stories in college baseball, defeating both Dallas Baptist and LSU to reach the regional final.
“We feel very confident,” Curry said. “What I like is, there is no panic. There won’t be any panic, future tense, and there hasn’t been any past tense. When somebody makes a run at us, which they will, we talk about weathering the storm. We know what to expect, we know how to travel, we know what’s going to be waiting on us. And that will help.”
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