report card time
The star student of Mississippi’s college class of 2012 is, without a doubt, Delta State. Ole Miss was the last team standing in our college baseball season — but only because the Division I season runs longer than D-II. DSU went 49-15, won a Gulf South Conference title, won a regional and then reached the championship game of the College World Series. A well-deserved A to the Statesmen. Ole Miss and Mississippi State also rate A’s for making it to regional play out of the rugged SEC. The Rebels (37-26) overcame a late-season lull to reach the championship round of the College Station Regional. State (40-24) gets extra credit for winning the SEC Tournament crown before going out rather quietly in the Tallahassee Regional. Southern Miss will have to settle for a B. The Golden Eagles went 32-24 and won two of three games in the Conference USA Tournament, including a win over powerhouse Rice. But they fell short of making it to the NCAA postseason for what would have been a 10th straight year. Mississippi Valley State finished with an ugly 17-38 record but reaching the championship game of the SWAC Tournament is worthy of a B. Give a B also to Jackson State (33-16), which dominated the SWAC in the regular season but came up a dud in the tournament. Belhaven (32-24), William Carey (29-27), Millsaps (28-16) and Mississippi College (21-24) fall into the C category. The Blazers were the defending Southern States Athletic Conference Tournament champs but barely made the field this year as the 8-seed. MC gets some extra credit for scrambling to make the American Southwest Conference postseason and winning its best-of-3 opening round series. The records for Tougaloo and Rust are unavailable, so they get incompletes. Blue Mountain, despite its 25-31 record, deserves a special mention — and a B grade — for reaching the championship round of the TranSouth Athletic Conference Tournament in just its second year of competition. All in all, it was another good year for Magnolia State college baseball, which also produced a first-round MLB draft pick (MSU’s Chris Stratton).