Monthly Archives: March 2012

Belhaven has stalled a bit since its roaring start and faces a big series against league rival Auburn-Montgomery at Smith-Wills Stadium this weekend. After starting 10-3, the 15th-ranked Blazers are now 15-9 and just 4-5 in the Southern States Athletic Conference. Anthony Doss is still raking: .398 with 23 runs and 20 RBIs. Bud Britt is batting .354. But as a team, BU is hitting just .273 with no other regulars over .300. The Blazers have an excellent staff ERA of 3.07, but they’d like to see more consistency from starter Allen Johnson (2-4, 6.03) and closer Josh Clarke (6.43 ERA, with five saves). The Blazers are slated to play a single game today and a doubleheader on Saturday. UAM, ranked 13th in NAIA, is 16-9 and 7-2 SSAC.
P.S. Charles Epperson (.405, four homers, 11 RBIs) and Kendall Logan (.405, 2, 12) have been sizzling for Jackson State, which hosts Alabama State in a SWAC series at Braddy Field this weekend. The Tigers are 6-6, 2-1 in the league. … Mississippi College plays its first American Southwest Conference series this weekend. The Choctaws (6-8) face Texas-Tyler (12-3) today and Saturday (twinbill) at Frierson Field in Clinton. UT-Tyler was the preseason favorite in the ASC East. … The injury bug has struck Mississippi State hitting stalwarts C.T. Bradford and Daryl Norris. The latter reportedly could be out for an extended period.

Ole Miss’ Senquez Golson had an odd — but good — game on Tuesday. Golson was 0-for-7 but scored four times in the Rebels’ 20-4 rout of UT-Martin, which made five errors. Golson, the highly prized two-sport star from Pascagoula, has scored 10 runs in nine games for the 10-2 Rebels. The freshman is also hitting .333 with four steals in five attempts. Alex Yarbrough is batting .413 with two homers and 16 RBIs, but the numbers that really jump off the Ole Miss stat page belong to Zach Kirksey. The senior, who struggled in 2011 after transferring in from juco power LSU-Eunice, is batting .500 (11-for-22) with five homers, 21 RBIs and a 1.364 slugging percentage. Kirksey blasted two homers against UT-Martin, including a grand slam, and has half the Rebels’ team total.
P.S. Former Jackson Generals star Carlos Guillen announced his retirement on Tuesday. The number of ex-Gens still hanging around dwindles. Lance Berkman, Bobby Abreu, Freddy Garcia, Julio Lugo and Raul Chavez remain active. … What a hard fall it’s been for former Jackson Mets standout Lenny Dykstra, who was sentenced to three years in a California prison on Monday for car theft. When he arrived in Jackson in 1984, bursting with talent and confidence, he seemed to have the world in his hands.

Leadoff batter C.T. Bradford filled the box score for Mississippi State on Sunday, going 4-for-6 with a double, a home run (No. 1 career for the sophomore), a stolen base, three runs and six RBIs. Tonight, the 5-foot-8 left-hander from Florida gets a chance to fill an entirely different line on the stat sheet when he takes the mound against Penn State at Dudy Noble Field. (Yes, it’s the 13th straight home game for the Bulldogs, who are 10-2 and have entered the national rankings.) Bradford made a handful of appearances as a pitcher last season, working 8 1/3 innings. Of course, his first order of business this season is and will be swinging the bat. His big day in Sunday’s 16-6 win over Lipscomb lifted his average to .294 and his RBI total to a team-best 13. He was a freshman All-America pick last season after batting .303 and was the Atlanta Regional MVP.

Delta State’s hot start with the bats had grabbed a lot of attention, but it was pitching that carried the Statesmen in their first Gulf South Conference series of the year. DSU allowed just eight runs in taking two of three at Alabama-Huntsville over the weekend, a performance punctuated by Aaron Newcomb’s five-hit, 12-strikeout effort in Sunday’s third game. Newcomb, a senior right-hander, is 3-0. He took a 1.38 ERA into Sunday’s game, and the only run he yielded in nine innings of the 5-1 win was unearned. The nationally ranked NCAA Division II Statesmen are 10-2 heading into a two-game set at Arkansas Tech on Tuesday and Wednesday.
P.S. Mitch Moreland homered in his second at-bat of the spring on Sunday. “The wrist is good,” the Mississippi State product told mlb.com. Moreland had wrist surgery in the off-season after struggling down the stretch for the Texas Rangers in 2011. The lefty-hitting first baseman has 25 homers in 181 major league games and is a .258 hitter with a good glove. Still, the Rangers looked into signing Prince Fielder. … Hinds Community College has moved to 12-2.

In case you missed this late Friday night, Mississippi College beat Sul Ross State 36-9 in the second game of a doubleheader at Alpine, Texas. According to MC, the 36 runs are the most scored by the team since at least 1997, when the Choctaws moved to NCAA Division III (from D-II). The Choctaws had 28 hits and belted three home runs, two more than they had hit all season to that point. (They also benefitted from a jaw-dropping 12 errors by Sul Ross.) Senior Spencer Brunson went 4-for-7 with four RBIs and five runs. Jeremy Simmons, Mike Kerdock, Blaine Posey and Rob Thomas had three hits apiece, and Thomas, Daniel Wass and Zach Evans homered. MC only failed to score in one of the nine innings, the fifth. But here’s the craziest part: The Choctaws had innings of one, two, three, four, five, six, seven and eight runs. Cannot imagine that happening too many times before at any level of the game anywhere. … Alas, MC lost the non-conference series two games to one. The Choctaws (6-8) stranded 12 runners in the 12-6 loss in Saturday’s rubber game.

There may be bit more pressure on Southern Miss’ touted freshmen to perform given the news out of Golden Eagles camp. Outfielder Kameron Brunty, a four-year starter, reportedly has a broken hand that could sideline him 6-8 weeks. That would mean missing the start of Conference USA play (Houston and Rice are up first) and possibly as many as five league series. That’s a painful blow. Brunty was hitting .370 with a team-leading 10 hits in eight games for the 6-3 Eagles, who pounded Alabama on Wednesday. Brunty, from Gulf Breeze, Fla., batted .301 with five homers and 34 RBIs last year as USM’s leadoff batter. He was in the 3-hole this season and was being counted on to carry a rebuilt lineup. The load just got heavier for freshmen Mason Robbins (.400 in seven games) and Connor Barron (.360 in six). They were the centerpieces in a recruiting class that was ranked in the top 15 nationally by two different publications.