off the beaten path

Alcorn State tends to move under the radar, but the Braves have at least one player worth tracking this season. Shortstop Angel Rosa was picked as the Southwestern Athletic Conference preseason player of the year by Baseball America and also is rated the league’s second-best MLB draft prospect. Through his first 11 games this season, Rosa was hitting .452 with three doubles and five RBIs. And the Braves, off to a 2-12 start, have played some good competition, including Southern Miss, Wake Forest, Oklahoma State and Louisiana-Monroe. This weekend Alcorn is at Tennessee for a three-game set. Rosa is a 6-foot-2, 182-pound native of Puerto Rico and is in his third season with the Braves. He hit .292 with four homers and 30 RBIs in 2012. P.S. Belhaven, at 13-11, has had a rather uneven start, but the Blazers have notched some quality wins of late. They beat NAIA No. 1 Tennessee Wesleyan on Wednesday and also have beaten nationally ranked Freed-Hardeman and Lee University in the last two weeks. … Props to Southwest Mississippi Community College coach Lee Kuyrkendall on recently picking up his 400th career win. He also coached at Mississippi College.