get it started …

They’ll play ball on Friday at Smith-Wills Stadium, where Belhaven hosts Blue Mountain in the first college game of the 2013 season. Those two will play again on Saturday, and BU will host Tougaloo on Jan. 29 in the Bulldogs’ opener. William Carey starts on Feb. 1 with a home game against LSU-Shreveport. Delta State opens Feb. 8, hosting Montevallo, and Mississippi College plays Game 1 the same day against Birmingham-Southern in the Millsaps Invitational. Millsaps launches Feb. 9 against Ozarks. The NCAA Division I start date is Feb. 15, and five of the state’s six D-I schools play that day: Ole Miss hosts TCU, Mississippi State hosts Portland, Southern Miss brings in Missouri, Jackson State hosts Texas Southern and Alcorn State plays Wake Forest in the Louisiana-Monroe tournament. Mississippi Valley State is slated for a home doubleheader against SWAC foe Prairie View on Feb. 16. P.S. Christian Bethancourt, the Mississippi Braves catcher in 2012, was rated the No. 7 catching prospect in the minors by mlb.com. Bethancourt, not expected back in Pearl this season, has a very bright future. … Noticed that big league veteran Fred Lewis, the ex-Stone County High and Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College standout, has signed to play in Japan this season. He was with the New York Mets at the end of 2012.