Pearl River Community College Archives - All Mississippi Baseball

18 Apr

hard times befallen

Expectations were not great for the Chicago White Sox heading into this season. Marcus Thames, the Louisville native and ex-East Central Community College star hired as the club’s new hitting coach in the off-season, surely knew this. But just as surely, he did not expect the times to be this hard. The White Sox can’t hit. They split a doubleheader against visiting Kansas City on Wednesday despite scoring just four runs on 11 hits and going 1-for-16 with runners in scoring position. The team ranks last in MLB in runs, home runs and OPS and 29th in batting. They are 3-15. Injuries to some key players are partly to blame for the ice-cold start, but not solely. “We have guys who are capable of being better,” Thames said in a recent mlb.com story. The ChiSox won just 61 games in a tumultuous 2023 season. Manager Pedro Grifol’s staff changes included the hiring of Thames as the team’s third hitting coach in three years. The former big league slugger has earned a strong reputation as a coach after stops in New York (Yankees), Miami and Los Angeles (Angels). But his skills are being tested with a club projected by USA Today to win just 69 games. “This game is tough,” he told mlb.com, “but at the same time we have to battle and compete.” P.S. Thames’ alma mater, No. 4-ranked East Central CC, took a pair from No. 2 Pearl River CC, 3-1 and 7-2, in the big juco showdown in Poplarville. PRCC’s 29-game win streak was halted. The Wildcats are 42-7, 22-2 in the MACCC. ECCC, which was No. 1 in NJCAA Division II at one point, is 42-4, 18-4. The Warriors rode the bat of Mo Little and the arms of Marbin Lezcano and Luke Cooley to the impressive sweep.

17 Apr

clash of titans

For one day at least — make that today — the center of the state’s baseball universe is Dub Herring Park in Poplarville. Pearl River Community College (42-5), ranked No. 2 in NJCAA Division II and riding a 29-game win streak, hosts East Central CC (40-4), which is ranked No. 4 and started the season with 31 straight wins while rising to No. 1. The host Wildcats are 22-0 in the MACCC; ECCC’s Warriors are 16-4. PRCC hits .345 as a team with 77 home runs. The big bopper in the lineup is Hollis Porter, raking at .431 with 18 homers and 56 RBIs. The Wildcats’ pitching staff features a 2.43 ERA and three eight-game winners, led by J.P. Robertson (8-0, 2.28). Mo Little, a preseason All-America pick, leads ECCC with a .372 average, nine homers, 62 RBIs and 16 steals. Luke Cooley is the Warriors’ ace: 6-0, 1.89 ERA, 13.3 K’s per nine innings. Today’s twinbill starts at 3 p.m. … Two other big doubleheaders are on today’s MACCC docket: No. 12 Jones College (33-9) visits Meridian, which was ranked 13th in preseason, and No. 15 Northwest (31-12) hosts East Mississippi.

01 Apr

poll positions

Slumping East Central Community College dropped one spot in the NJCAA Division II poll, while surging Pearl River CC climbed one spot. Former No. 1 ECCC (33-3 with three losses in its last five games) is now No. 2 behind LSU-Eunice; Pearl River (34-5 with 21 straight wins) moved up to fourth from fifth. Jones (29-5) is No. 7 and Northwest (25-9) sits at No. 17. … Pearl River’s all-around strength is fairly remarkable: The Wildcats are No. 2 in the country in runs and home runs, second in ERA and fourth in fielding percentage. … In Baseball America’s new NCAA Division I poll, which is dominated by SEC teams, Mississippi State (19-10) checks in at No. 19 despite losing two of three (via walk-offs) at Florida, which ranks fourth. Arkansas remains No. 1 after a sweep of LSU last weekend and will host Ole Miss this coming weekend. Former Lewisburg High star Brady Tygart is 3-0 with a 2.51 ERA as the Razorbacks’ No. 3 starter. Madison Central High alum Braden Montgomery, who plays for No. 3 Texas A&M, is the SEC’s player of the week after going 7-for-14 with three homers in a sweep of Auburn. … William Carey University (22-10) has won 11 of 12 and surely will get back into the Top 25 in the next NAIA coaches poll. The Crusaders were preseason No. 4. … Jackson State was ranked No. 2 in Black College Nines’ HBCU Large School poll last week but will surely tumble after getting swept at Florida A&M by a collective 29-5 over the weekend. JSU is 19-8, 5-3 SWAC.

28 Mar

rising river

East Central Community College currently holds the No. 1 ranking in NJCAA Division II, but Pearl River CC is No. 5 with a bullet. The Wildcats swept two games from Hinds on Tuesday to run their win streak to 19. They are 32-5 and 12-0 in the MACCC, alone in first place. ECCC, which won its first 31 games of the season, lost for the second time in three outings on Wednesday, falling to Copiah-Lincoln 3-1 in Game 2 of a twinbill. ECCC is 32-2, 8-2. Seventh-ranked Jones beat Gulf Coast twice on Wednesday to improve to 29-5, 11-1; and No. 18 Northwest sits at 24-8, 9-1, after a sweep of Holmes. But Pearl River, which won the national championship two years ago, is the team of the moment. The ‘Cats belted 11 homers in a sweep of Itawamba on Saturday, then got great pitching on Tuesday from Thomas Crabtree — the league’s reigning pitcher of the week — and J.P. Robertson, former Germantown High star, in the 9-2, 6-1 sweep of Hinds. Hollis Porter, named the NJCAA D-II hitter of the week on Wednesday, homered in Game 1 and drove in three runs in Game 2. The Mississippi State transfer from Hurley is batting .425 with 15 homers, four shy of the school single-season record. P.S. Baseball America’s first projected field of 64 for the NCAA Tournament features four state schools, with Jackson State joining Southern Miss, Ole Miss and Mississippi State. UM and MSU — the national champs in 2022 and 2021, respectively — missed the tournament in 2023.

24 Mar

take cover

Those weren’t UFOs — or UAPs, if you prefer — flying around Dub Herring Park in Poplarville on Saturday. Those were baseballs, and 11 of them went out of the yard for home runs as No. 5 Pearl River Community College battered Itawamba CC 13-3 and 18-1. Nine different players homered for the Wildcats (30-5, 10-0 MACCC), with Hollis Porter — the Mississippi State transfer from Hurley — going deep twice to push his national-best total to 14. Alex Wade also hit two bombs. “I was really proud of our guys. They swung it really well,” PRCC coach Michael Avalon said in a school release. The Wildcats had 26 hits all told in the 15 innings of play. Not to be overlooked are the dominant efforts of winning pitchers Caleb Dyess and J.T. Schooner. … Meanwhile on Saturday, East Central CC, the No. 1 team in the latest NJCAA Division II poll, saw its 31-game win streak snapped by Northwest, which beat the Warriors 8-7 in Game 2 of a twinbill in Decatur. ECCC is 31-1, 7-1 in the league. The unranked Rangers are 21-8, 7-1. Tenth-ranked Jones swept Coahoma to move to 27-5 and 9-1.

08 Mar

and they’re off

We are several weeks into the junior college season, but the race for the all-important conference championship has yet to start. The green flag will wave on Saturday with six doubleheaders on the docket. East Central Community College, which would have to be considered the pole-sitter, opens on Sunday. The Warriors, the defending champs, coast into MACCC play with a 23-0 record and will take on sputtering Coahoma (4-11) in Clarksdale. On Saturday, Pearl River — ranked No. 3 in the NJCAA Division II preseason poll — takes a 20-5 record into its games at Northeast (14-9). Elsewhere: Holmes (8-8) is at Jones (18-4); Delta (6-8) is at Gulf Coast (14-6); Hinds (12-11) is at East Mississippi (14-7); Southwest (12-13) is at Northwest (13-5); and Itawamba (7-10) visits Meridian (15-7). Copiah-Lincoln (10-12) opens league play on March 13 at Gulf Coast. … The top hitter in the state is Northwest’s Cade Leatherwood, batting .500. Gulf Coast’s Marc Stephens is at .487. Pearl River’s Hollis Porter leads the league in homers with 10, and East’s Evan Radford has eight. ECCC’s Mo Little has a state-best 34 RBIs and six homers. Top pitchers include ECCC’s Luke Cooley (3-0, 1.57 ERA, 44 strikeouts); Pearl River’s J.P. Robertson (5-0, 2.42); and Jones’ Beau Bryans (4-0, 1.93).

10 Feb

tagging up

Bradley Pelle and his Millsaps College teammates hit the ground swinging on Friday. The NCAA Division III Majors opened their season with an 8-7, 17-8 sweep at LeTourneau (Texas). Pelle went 6-for-8 with three RBIs and six runs to pace the Millsaps attack. Jim Page, a recent Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame inductee, now has 839 wins over his 36 seasons. … Elsewhere in the small college ranks: Mississippi College (4-2) blasted visiting Miles 6-0 and 21-5 Friday in Clinton. J.T. Vance drove in seven runs and Cole Drake six in Game 2. Vance, a transfer from state champion East Central Community College, leads the Division II Choctaws with a .409 average. … Delta State, which yielded 32 runs in a 1-2 start against Harding last weekend, beat host Spring Hill (Ala.) 6-0 behind Drake Fontenot’s pitching and homers by Hayden Cooper and Taylor Woodcock in the opener of a Friday twinbill. The D-II Statesmen lost Game 2 9-5. … William Carey University, ranked No. 4 in NAIA, improved to 3-2 with a 6-5 win over Talladega in Hattiesburg. Preston Ratliff’s eighth-inning sac fly was the game-winner. … NAIA Blue Mountain Christian is off to a 5-1 start, led by Chris Smith, who’s hitting .556 with eight RBIs and four runs. … Belhaven dropped a pair of one-run games (to Hendrix and Westminster) at Conway, Ark., in new coach Andrew Gipson’s debut. Noah Foster was 4-for-9 in the two games for the D-III Blazers. … Rust College, defending regular season champ in the GCAC, is 0-7 after a 17-0 loss to Jarvis Christian. Jalin Thomas, an NAIA honorable mention All-America pick last year, has not played for the Bearcats. … Tougaloo, also a GCAC member, is 0-3 heading into weekend games against Tuskegee. The Bulldogs visit Blue Mountain on Tuesday. … Southeastern Baptist (of Laurel) lost its first two games last week at Southern-New Orleans, which is playing its inaugural season. … MUW opens Feb. 16 at Huntingdon (Ala.). P.S. Third-ranked Pearl River Community College (6-1) swept Baton Rouge 10-0 and 3-0 on Friday and made ESPN’s Top 10 plays. The Wildcats’ highlighted double play was started by second baseman Jeff Ince, who made a diving stop, then fed shortstop Creek Robertson, who fired to first baseman Hollis Porter, who scooped a low throw. Ince also hit a homer Friday and Porter belted a pair.

10 Aug

in good time

Bryson Ware, former Germantown High All-Stater, started slowly at Auburn but erupted as a senior in 2023 to hit a school-record 24 home runs and earn second-team All-SEC laurels. Similarly, Ware mustered just two singles in the first 28 plate appearances of his pro career before smashing a ninth-inning home run on Wednesday for Clearwater, Philadelphia’s Low-Class A affiliate. The 6-foot-2, 211-pound Ware was an eighth-round draft pick by the Phillies last month and debuted in the rookie Florida Complex League, going 2-for-16 before getting a promotion earlier this week. (Among his teammates on what is an outstanding Threshers club — 69-34 overall in the Florida State League — is former South Panola High star Emaarion Boyd, a second-year pro. Boyd is batting .277 with 47 steals.) Ware began his college career at Pearl River Community College, where he batted .321 with five homers in 16 games in the COVID-shortened 2020 season. He signed with Auburn but didn’t have a big impact his first two years on The Plains. He retooled his swing after the 2022 season, per a story on auburntigers.com, and won the third base job entering the 2023 season. “He’s stayed in the fight,” Auburn coach Butch Thompson, a fellow Mississippian, said back in the spring. Ware hit .350, drove in 63 runs, scored 66 and helped steer the Tigers into the NCAAs for the second straight season. … Ex-Mississippi State star Dakota Hudson picked up his second win in as many starts since returning to St. Louis’ rotation. The right-hander went five innings, allowing two homers to Jose Siri and three runs all told, as the Cardinals beat Tampa Bay 6-4. Hudson beat Minnesota, another playoff contender, in his previous start; he is 3-0 with a 4.31 ERA on the season.

19 Jul

random numbers

7 — Austin Riley’s career-high RBI total from Tuesday night’s game, which Atlanta lost 16-13 at home to Arizona. DeSoto Central High product Riley hit two home runs — both go-ahead bombs — and now has 18 on the year with 52 RBIs.
3 — Hits by Tim Anderson in the Chicago White Sox’s 11-10 loss to the New York Mets. The ex-East Central Community College standout might finally be heating up. With seven hits in his last four games, he has lifted his average to .234. (He did, however, make the last out of the game with the go-ahead run at second base.)
197 — Total runs scored in MLB games on Tuesday, a season-high; there were four games in which both teams scored double-digits, a modern era record. Riley scored three of those runs, Anderson two and Nathaniel Lowe, Mississippi State alum now with Texas, scored once. No other Mississippians contributed a run.
1.54 — Tyler Stuart’s ERA, which — as of Tuesday a.m. — led all qualified minor leaguers, per mlb.com. The ex-Southern Miss star, a 2022 draftee by the Mets, was 4-0, 1.55, at High-Class A Brooklyn and allowed one run in six innings in his Double-A debut for Binghamton last Saturday. The 6-foot-9 Stuart pitched mostly in relief in two seasons at USM. The Mets made him a starter this spring. “I feel like I get better as the game goes on,” he said in an mlb.com piece.
8 — Wins by Derek Diamond, the former Ole Miss standout now at Low-A Bradenton in Pittsburgh’s system. The right-hander, a 2022 draftee, threw seven innings on Tuesday, allowing four hits, a walk and a lone run to beat Fort Myers 5-2. He is 8-3 with a 3.98.
6 — Appearances in the Florida Complex League by Colby White, who is on a rehab assignment with Tampa Bay. White, an ex-MSU star, blew through four levels of the minors in 2021 (4-3, 11 saves, 1.44 ERA all told) and went to spring training with the Rays in 2022 before an arm injury cost him the entire year. He has a 1.59 ERA in the FCL this season and may be close to making his big league debut.
16 — Number of 2023 Pearl River Community College players bound for four-year schools this fall. It’s a program record, according to a release from the school. Of note: Gabe Broadus and Landen Payne are USM signees, Will Passeau is off to MSU, Tristan Hickman to Delta State, Blaise Breerwood to Mississippi College, Bobby Magee to William Carey and Alex Perry to Tennessee. PRCC won the NJCAA Division II national title in 2022 and was the preseason No. 1 this year.

11 Jul

feeling a draft

Day 2 of the MLB draft saw eight players from Mississippi selected, joining the three picked during Rounds 1-2 on Sunday. Four from Southern Miss were picked: Tanner Hall (fourth round, Minnesota), Justin Storm (seventh, Miami), Dustin Dickerson (eighth, Kansas City) and Matthew Etzel (10th, Baltimore). Calvin Harris (fourth, Chicago White Sox) and Jack Dougherty (ninth, Minnesota) were plucked from Ole Miss, and Cade Smith (sixth, New York Yankees) from Mississippi State. Cooper Pratt, Magnolia Heights Academy grad, is the lone high school player drafted to date (sixth, Milwaukee). Former Germantown High and Pearl River Community College star Bryson Ware was picked in the eighth round out of Auburn by Philadelphia. Rounds 11-20 are today. … On Sunday, Ole Miss’ Jacob Gonzalez was the 15th overall selection by the White Sox. Rebels outfielder Kemp Alderman (second, Miami) and MSU outfielder Colton Ledbetter (second, Tampa Bay) also were picked on Sunday. Hurston Waldrep, who pitched at USM in 2022 and at Florida this past season, went to Atlanta in the first round, 24th overall.