Long before this weekend’s Sun Belt Conference Softball Tournament in Lafayette, one of Hattiesburg’s most fascinating softball weekends happened away from campus, tucked into the community-ballpark setting of Oak Grove Optimist Park. In May 2000, the park hosted the first Conference USA Softball Tournament, and what looked like a league championship weekend became a preview of Oklahoma City. Two teams that played on those fields, Southern Miss and DePaul, went on to reach the Women’s College World Series that same month.
The 2000 C-USA Tournament was held May 11-13 at Oak Grove Optimist Park in Hattiesburg. Southern Miss entered as the No. 1 seed, DePaul as the No. 2, South Florida as the No. 3, Louisville as the No. 4, UAB as the No. 5, Saint Louis as the No. 6 and Charlotte as the No. 7. DePaul opened by beating Charlotte 5-0, South Florida beat Saint Louis 6-0, Louisville edged UAB 2-1, and then the bracket immediately got messy when South Florida knocked off DePaul 7-4. Southern Miss, meanwhile, began its tournament with a 3-0 win over Louisville.
From there, Southern Miss looked like a team built for May. The Lady Eagles beat South Florida 3-0, then met DePaul in the championship game after the Blue Demons had fought all the way back through the bracket with wins over UAB, Louisville and South Florida. In the final, Southern Miss shut out DePaul 4-0 to win the inaugural C-USA Tournament championship.
That title was part of a ridiculous late-season Southern Miss surge. After sitting at 35-10, the Lady Eagles ripped off 24 straight wins, allowed only 10 runs during that entire stretch. The Lady Eagles captured the inaugural C-USA regular-season title, and then won the C-USA Tournament at Oak Grove, and later won the Baton Rouge Regional to advance to their second straight Women’s College World Series. Southern Miss later remembered that team as one that had the hard job of following the 1999 WCWS club, and it did more than match it.
At the center of it all was Courtney Blades, one of the greatest pitchers in college softball history. Southern Miss notes that Blades was named C-USA Pitcher of the Year and tournament MVP, while Amy Berman and Chrystal Stevens joined her as first-team all-conference players. Blades also made NCAA history that season by becoming the all-time strikeout leader, passing Cal great Michelle Granger with her 1,641st career strikeout.
The Oak Grove tournament was not the end of the story. It was the launching pad. Southern Miss went to the Baton Rouge Regional and survived a brutal road to Oklahoma City. The Lady Eagles beat Oregon 3-0, hammered Hofstra 14-1, lost a 13-inning heartbreaker to LSU, then came back to beat Oregon again and finally defeated LSU 1-0 in nine innings. Blades threw all 44 innings of the regional, struck out 62, allowed only three runs, and was named Most Outstanding Player.
DePaul’s road was just as impressive. After losing twice in Hattiesburg, the Blue Demons regrouped and dominated the Ann Arbor Regional. They beat Michigan 8-0, Notre Dame 1-0, Central Michigan 5-0 and Michigan again 3-0 to qualify for the WCWS at 4-0 in regional play.
Then came the truly wild part: two teams from that same Oak Grove tournament were in Oklahoma City. DePaul lost tight games to Washington and Alabama, but Southern Miss made national noise immediately. Blades threw a perfect game against Arizona in a 1-0 WCWS win, striking out 12. It was just the fourth perfect game in Women’s College World Series history.
Southern Miss eventually finished its WCWS run with a win over Alabama before being eliminated by UCLA. Blades was later listed with a 52-7 record, 0.89 ERA and 663 strikeouts, and she earned the Honda Sports Award as the nation’s top softball player.
Today, more than two decades removed from that unforgettable May weekend, Oak Grove Optimist Park remains one of the beating hearts of youth baseball and softball in South Mississippi. What once served as the host site for one of Conference USA’s most historic softball tournaments has evolved into the Oak Grove Sports Complex, a sprawling community facility filled with travel ball tournaments, youth league championships, and the next generation of Mississippi athletes chasing their own postseason dreams.
Its manicured diamonds at 345 Hegwood Road may now be best known for weekend tournaments and local families, but for Southern Miss fans, those fields still hold a unique place in college softball lore — the place where Courtney Blades and the Lady Eagles helped launch one of the most remarkable Women’s College World Series runs in school history, while DePaul proved that Oak Grove briefly became the unlikely center of the softball world. Even today, every pitch thrown there carries echoes of a tournament that transformed a local park into sacred ground for college softball in Hattiesburg.
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