March 17, 2025 - All Mississippi Baseball

poll watching

“What helps me as a baseball player is, before the game, knowing that I can affect the game in multiple ways — defensive side of the ball, stealing a bag, scoring runs, getting on base, not just focusing on hitting. I think whenever I go out there aggressively to be able to affect a game in so many different ways, I always like to say, ‘Count the positives.’ If I have more positives than negatives that day, I had a good day.” Those words were spoken by Corey Dickerson after a walk-off hit in a big league game some time back. One can imagine the former MLB outfielder from McComb delivering that same kind of message to his Jackson Academy players, who are off to an 11-2 start in Dickerson’s debut as head coach. The Raiders, who went 4-0 in last week’s Battle at the Beach, have bolted to No. 3 in MaxPreps Mississippi Top 25. Dickerson was a .280 career hitter in the majors, with over 1,000 hits, posted a .323 on-base percentage and won a Gold Glove. The Raiders are hitting .331 as a team with 61 stolen bases and a .963 fielding percentage. Foster Meacham is batting .475, one of three Raiders hitting .400 or better. … Magnolia Heights is No. 1 in the MaxPreps poll, followed by No. 2 Lewisburg, JA, Southeast Lauderdale at No. 4 and Purvis at 5. … Ole Miss (15-4) dropped from 13th to 19th in Baseball America’s new poll and is the only state school ranked. UM is No. 18 and Southern Miss (14-6) No. 19 in both the ESPN and d1baseball.com polls. The two meet Tuesday night (6 p.m.) at Trustmark in Pearl in what ought to be a spirited affair. The Rebels beat the Golden Eagles 15-8 in Oxford last month. … Pearl River Community College moved up a spot to No. 1 in the new NJCAA Division II poll. PRCC (22-4) swept Northwest 16-1 and 13-1 on Sunday, hitting seven homers and allowing just seven hits. Ethan Garner hit two bombs for the Wildcats. East Central dropped from No. 1 to fourth, Jones is sixth, Gulf Coast 21 and Holmes 24. … Millsaps College took two of three from NCAA Division III nationally ranked Center, beating the Colonels 10-4 on Sunday to improve to 13-5, 2-1 SAA. The Majors might crack the d3baseball.com poll this week. … Delta State, ranked 12th in the NCBWA D-II poll last week, is poised to move up at 19-6 and 12-3 Gulf South. Mississippi College, 17-9, 10-5 GSC, with 10 wins in its last 11 games, might crack the D-II Top 25 this week.

digging the long ball

Brewton-Parker Field in Mount Vernon, Ga., isn’t especially small, but for William Carey University’s hitters, it played like a bandbox over the weekend. The Crusaders hit 19 home runs and scored 75 runs all told — 31, 11 and 33 — in a three-game sweep of the Southern States Athletic Conference series. “(P)laying in some of the smaller parks really plays into our power throughout the lineup,” Carey coach Bobby Halford said in a school release. Carey, ranked 12th in NAIA, is 22-4 and 13-2 in the SSAC with eight wins in a row. Brewton-Parker fell to 9-15, 4-11. High-scoring games aren’t uncommon at BP Field: Four times previously visiting teams had scored 13 or more runs in 2025. The host scored a season-high 17 in Game 1 vs. Carey. But still, the Crusaders’ show of power was jaw-dropping. Jayden Mark had a three-homer game, his first three of the season. Josh Alexander, Carey’s homer leader at 10, had two two-homer games, and Preston Ratliff and Rigoberto Hernandez each produced a two-homer game. The Crusaders entered the series with 17 homers over 23 games. … Of the state’s big four NCAA Division I schools, only one came out of the first weekend of conference play feeling very good. Southern Miss (14-6) took two of three from visiting Old Dominion to start Sun Belt play, though the Golden Eagles lost Game 3. Ole Miss (15-4) dropped two of three at home against Arkansas, Mississippi State (13-7) was swept by visiting Texas and Jackson State (12-6) went 1-2 at Prairie View A&M. … Millsaps College rallied from four runs down to beat Centre 5-4 at Twenty Field to split a Sunday doubleheader; Charles Hunt, a pinch hitter, knocked in the game-winner in the bottom of the seventh. The Majors are 12-5, 1-1 Southern Athletic Association. Centre, nationally ranked in Division III, is 12-2, 4-1. P.S. In MLB, ex-State star Hunter Renfroe hit two doubles and a triple and drove in five runs for Kansas City in a Cactus League game. Veteran outfielder Renfroe is batting .348 with a homer and nine RBIs this spring. … Brandon Woodruff, former Bulldogs pitcher, threw a scoreless inning for Milwaukee in his first MLB game action since 2023. “It was a big day for me,” a beaming Woodruff, coming off shoulder surgery, told reporters. … Right-hander J.T. Ginn, another MSU product, was optioned to Triple-A by the A’s; Ginn made his MLB debut last season.