By Robert Wilson
Southern Miss head baseball coach Christian Ostrander is considered one of the top pitching coaches in college baseball.
His latest decision has paid off huge benefits for his Golden Eagles team.
Ostrander moved his closer – sophomore right-hander Camden Clark – to the starting weekend rotation and Clark has made a smooth transition.
In fact, Clark earned the Sun Belt Conference Pitcher of the Week and a spot on Baseball America’s Team of the Week for his performance last weekend.
Clark, in his third start this season, allowed only three hits and one earned run and had 15 strikeouts without a walk in seven innings and led Southern Miss to a 3-1 victory over Louisiana-Monroe Saturday in the second game of the Sun Belt series at Southern Miss’ Pete Taylor Park in Hattiesburg.
Clark, who threw 105 pitches (83 for strikes), improved to 6-0 and dropped his earned run average to 2.83 and has 55 strikeouts and only six walks in 35 innings. He struck out at least one batter in every inning and struck out three in two innings.
It was the most strikeouts by a Southern Miss pitcher since Tanner Hall had 15 strikeouts against Arkansas State in 2023.
Ostrander made the change three weeks ago when he decided to start Clark in the third game against Texas State. Clark had four shutout innings and eight strikeouts before in his new role.
“You need three starters to get to where we want to go and be extremely competitive,” Ostrander said in his weekly visit with the SuperTalk Eagle Hour. “And to get where we want to, you need multiple guys in the bullpen who can help finish a game. It wasn’t easy. There was a part of me when we were in a 3-2 game Saturday (before Clark made his first start on Sunday) that I sure did want to tell Cam to get ready, but at the end of the day we stuck to our guns and we made the move and we’ve got conviction on it.”
Ostrander had been thinking about this decision for weeks.
“We leaned on each other as a staff and just what’s right,” Ostrander said. “I knew there were probably multiple right answers, in my opinion, on that. But what was needed? What’s going to help the whole thing? What’s going to help our offense to feel like, ‘Heck yeah, we’ve got this dude on the mound,’ and it makes it easier. Or maybe this is a wake-up for guys in the bullpen and say, ‘hey, we’re doing this because we trust you, that you can handle it. I think there’s a lot of different meanings and messages that can come from it. At the end of the day, we thought this was the best thing to do for this team to go out there and compete and win and try to achieve the goals that we have set for ourselves. People are out there saying, ‘why didn’t we do this earlier.’ You’ve got one of the best closer in the nation out there too behind you to help you finish games. Ultimately, you want your best arms, your best guys to throw as many innings as they can for you. So that’s kind of why we are doing what we are doing.”
Clark has 26 strikeouts and two walks in 13 innings in his three games as a starter.
After Clark’s impressive start against Texas State, Clark didn’t fair to well against South Alabama (6 hits, 5 earned runs, 1 1/3 innings), but he bounced back against Louisiana-Monroe.
“Some of the guys were messing with me about that, the feeling of getting back out there. When you have an outing like that, that’s all you can think about,” said Clark in an interview with Jason Baker of the Southern Miss radio network post game Sunday. “The only thing about starting is you have to wait seven days to pitch again. That last outing drove me a little more, I wanted to compete harder, and figure out what I’m doing wrong. Everything felt amazing, I was still getting stronger but it wasn’t a good idea to go back out there. My most pitches this year is 68.”
Clark was pumped to get the opportunity to make the change.
“It’s awesome,” Clark said in an interview with Jason Baker after his first start. “The closer role has been really fun, but I’ve started my whole life so really just getting to do that again was awesome.”
Clark had a 6-3 record and a 3.20 ERA with 76 strikeouts in 59 innings and helped Pearl River Community College to a National Junior College World Series runner-up finish last year as a freshman.
Clark had 138 strikeouts and had a 0.61 ERA in 68 2/3 innings as a senior at West Jones High two years ago. Also a catcher when he didn’t pitch, Clark hit .341 with 22 runs scored and 16 runs batted in. He was named the MSHAA Class 6A Mr. Baseball.
West Jones head coach Trey Sutton – who was an All-American and played second base and first base at Southern Miss from 2005-2008 – has known the Clark family for a long time.
“My relationship with Camden goes way back. His dad, Wade, was my high school coach at West Jones,” Sutton said. “Aside from my dad, Wade was one of my mentors growing up. So I kept up with Cam as he grew up and then I became his coach. He was a great catcher, as good a defensive catcher anywhere around. He was also a switch hitter. He didn’t pitch varsity for us until his junior year. He caught for us as a freshman and sophomore. He was throwing in the mid 80s by the end of his junior year. He kept processing in his senior year and was throwing upper 80s and low 90s as a senior. His development was awesome. He works hard. He’s a cage rat, always working out. I attribute his physical development to his great work ethic. He blew up his senior year. That Southern Miss went after him after only one year at Pearl River speaks well on what a great year he had as a freshman. Coach Oz and (Southern Miss pitching coach Gunner) Leger are as good as in the country to develop arms.”
Southern Miss – ranked No. 12 by DI Baseball and has the 10th best RPI – has a 34-14 record, 16-8 in the Sun Belt, and visits James Madison in a three-game Sun Belt series this weekend in Harrisburg, Va. Game 1 is scheduled for Friday at 5 p.m. Central. Clark is expected to start Game 2 Saturday.
Ostrander is hoping Clark can repeat what he did last week, and his entire pitching staff can continue to shine.
“Other than the pitch he left over the plate the guy hit out, Cam was pretty much flawless, and that’s hard to do,” Ostrander said on the Eagle Hour. “It is nice to be at this point where you feel very confident in your three starters. Each game you have a guy out there that can keep you in game and give you a chance to win. It feels good, it feels right. We are glad these guys are settled in and performing in these roles. It takes time to get to this point and feel it out. Then you know, ok, there it is. Let’s roll from here. I think we are at that point now.”
