Monthly Archives: May 2016

07 May

crunch time

There was one “upset” on the first day of the MACJC playoffs, and what a wild one it was. Hinds Community College, the fifth seed, beat fourth-seeded Northwest 12-11 in 10 innings over 4 hours and 20 minutes on Friday at Miles Field in Senatobia. They’ll finish the best-of-3 today. The teams combined for 21 hits and nine errors, seven by the Rangers. Hinds, the defending state champ, won it on a single by Donte Peters that scored Trey Jolly. Elsewhere, Mason Irby and Tanner Huddleston drove in three runs apiece and Mason Strickland notched his ninth win as No. 1 seed Jones County beat Delta 8-1 in Ellisville; Jaylon Keys hit a two-run triple and then scored the winning run in the ninth as host Meridian beat Itawamba 5-4 at Scaggs Field; and East Central topped Gulf Coast 11-9 in Decatur. P.S. William Carey bowed out of the Southern States Athletic Conference Tournament with an 8-2 loss to top-seeded and NAIA No. 3 Faulkner on Friday. The No. 23 Crusaders (37-19), who beat Mobile earlier in the day to stay alive, remain a strong candidate for an NAIA postseason bid. … Delta State’s quest for a 13th Gulf South Conference Tournament championship starts today at Pensacola, Fla. The second-seeded Statesmen (34-15) would appear to have the weapons to pull it off. GSC pitcher of the year Tre Hobbs (12-1, 2.85 ERA) fronts the rotation, which also features Dalton Moats (9-3, 3.10), and Will Robertson, the GSC’s top hitter at .475, leads a potent offense.

06 May

minor details

Anthony Alford, the ex-Petal High star, is playing again for Toronto’s high Class A Dunedin club after missing almost a month with a knee injury. Alford is just 1-for-12 in three games since he returned and is at .071 in four games all told. The highly regarded outfielder is playing just his second full pro season. … The Mississippi Braves’ Mississippi connections are putting up good numbers. Ole Miss product Chris Ellis moved to 4-0 with a 2.06 ERA with a win at Tennessee on Thursday, and Southern Miss alum Bradley Roney got the save, his second to go with an 0.87 ERA in nine appearances. … Former DeSoto Central standout Austin Riley, a 2015 Atlanta draftee and one of the organization’s top prospects, is batting .237 with two homers and 11 RBIs at low Class A Rome. … Vancleave High product Colin Bray is featured in the May 6-20 issue of Baseball America as a player to watch in the Arizona system. After a strong year in low-A ball in 2015, Bray, a switch-hitting outfielder, is batting .233 at high-A Visalia. “He can do everything you want a young player to do,” said Diamondbacks farm director Mike Bell. … Ole Miss product Alex Yarbrough is back in Double-A, where he had great success in 2014, in the Los Angeles Angels’ system. Yarbrough, who scuffled last year in Triple-A, is batting .275 with six doubles and 11 RBIs in 20 games at Arkansas. … Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College alum Fred Lewis, now 35, is hitting .286 with three homers for Southern Maryland in the independent Atlantic League.

05 May

first step

The road to Enid, Okla., starts Friday at four locations in Mississippi. The MACJC postseason, the first step toward the NJCAA Division II World Series, begins with four best-of-3 playoff series. Top seed Jones County hosts Delta; No. 2 Meridian hosts Itawamba; No. 3 East Central hosts Gulf Coast; and fourth-seeded Northwest hosts Hinds. Jones fairly dominated the regular season, finishing 24-4, 4 games clear of the field. But three of the teams that beat the Bobcats are in the postseason: Meridian, Hinds and ICC. Even 8-seed Delta could be dangerous; the Trojans won their last five games, including a sweep of Hinds, to get into the postseason. Still, Jones, 41-5 overall and flush with talent, will be a tough out. The pitching staff is deep. Mason Irby is batting .434 with seven homers and 61 RBIs, and don’t overlook Clint Sasser, whose 44 steals rank No. 2 in the country. Other players to watch: Meridian’s Baylor Obert (.420); ECCC’s Cole Prestegard (.367, eight homers) and Channing Wall (11 saves, 1.87 ERA); Northwest’s LeeMarcus Boyd (.360, 39 runs); Hinds’ Chase Cockrell (.341, six homers) and Carlisle Koestler (9-3, 3.14); Gulf Coast’s Brian Lane (.391); ICC’s Timothy Rowe (.421, eight homers); and Delta’s Nathan Pilutti (.305, four homers, 11 steals). The four winners from the best-of-3 round meet in a double-elimination tourney for the state title, which Hinds won in 2015. The top three from the MACJC event advance to the NJCAA Region 23 Tournament, which is the doorway to Enid.

04 May

ups and downs

After missing two games with pain in his right knee, ex-Ole Miss star Zack Cozart is back in the Cincinnati lineup today, batting leadoff against San Francisco. Former Taylorsville High standout Billy Hamilton, who reinjured his left thumb on Tuesday, will not start for the Reds. Cozart, who is batting .347 with two homers and nine RBIs, left Sunday’s game at Pittsburgh with an issue in his surgically repaired knee. Hamilton, who has recently boosted his average to .215, first hurt his thumb last month. … After Jonathan Papelbon blew a save on Tuesday, Washington manager Dusty Baker said the Mississippi State alum is in no danger of losing his job as closer. Papelbon is 9-for-11 in save chances. After allowing three runs in the ninth inning against Kansas City on Tuesday, his ERA jumped to 4.50. … Don’t be surprised if Itawamba Community College product Desmond Jennings is not in Tampa Bay’s lineup tonight. He is in an 0-for-24 skid that has dropped his average to .173. Jennings, who played only 28 games in 2015 because of injuries, actually got off to a good start this spring.

03 May

’tis the postseason

William Carey and Delta State, both dreaming of a long and lustrous postseason, get started on that quest this week with conference tournament play. Carey, nationally ranked in NAIA, is the fourth seed in the Southern States Athletic Conference Tournament and plays Mobile on Wednesday at Montgomery, Ala. Bobby Halford’s Crusaders are 35-17 and finished 17-8 in the SSAC. Carey’s split of two games with Loyola of New Orleans over the weekend cost Blue Mountain a berth in the SSAC tourney. BMC finished 7-19 in the league, ninth behind Loyola’s 7-18. The 23 wins were the most in a season for Curt Fowler’s still-young BMC program. Delta State (34-15), nationally ranked in NCAA Division II, heads into the Gulf South Conference Tournament as the No. 2 seed at 23-10. The event starts Saturday at Pensacola, Fla. Mike Kinnison’s Statesmen took two of three from Mississippi College over the weekend, clinching the No. 2 spot in the tournament with a 23-6 bashing of the Choctaws in Game 1 of a Sunday twinbill. MC finished 17-30 and 7-25 in its first year under Jeremy Haworth and second season back in the GSC.

01 May

hot & not

It’s safe to assume Zack Cozart isn’t getting questions anymore about his surgically repaired knee. It appears to be fine. As the calendar flips from April to May, the former Ole Miss star sits among the major league leaders with a .361 average. He also has a couple of homers and nine RBIs for Cincinnati. Also hot in the season’s opening month were UM product Seth Smith (.298, four homers, 10 RBIs), McComb native Jarrod Dyson (.303, four steals in only 10 games) and former Mississippi State standout Jonathan Papelbon (eight saves in nine chances). Somewhere in the temperate zone: State alum Mitch Moreland is at .257 with three homers and 11 RBIs; ex-Ole Miss standout Drew Pomeranz is 2-2 with a 2.86 ERA; Greenwood native Louis Coleman has posted a 3.60 ERA; and ex-State standout Kendall Graveman is 1-2 with a 4.03. On the not-so-hot chart, there’s a crowd that includes Taylorsville’s Billy Hamilton (.218, four steals), Meridian Community College product Corey Dickerson (.214 with five homers), ex-Southern Miss star Brian Dozier (.191 with three homers), Itawamba CC’s Desmond Jennings (.183), Ole Miss alum Chris Coghlan (.155 with four homers) and Gulf Coast CC product Tony Sipp (5.40 ERA).