state of the state
It’s time for eyes to focus on prizes in college baseball. Delta State and Jackson State clinched titles over the weekend, and Millsaps College stayed in the hunt for another one. The junior college playoff matchups are set. Postseason play is about to flow over us. … DSU, which won the Gulf South Conference regular season title with a 19-4-1 record, will play 8-seed Christian Brothers in a league tournament opener on Thursday in Chattanooga, Tenn. … JSU swept three games from rival Alcorn State to wrap up the SWAC Eastern Division title. The conference tournament is still a couple of weeks away, set for May 15-19 in Fort Worth. With games still left on the slate, Alcorn is third in the East at 11-10 and Mississippi Valley is fifth (last) at 1-16. … Millsaps, which had fallen into the losers bracket of its league mini-tournament, beat Hendrix twice at Twenty Field on Sunday to survive and advance to the Southern Athletic Association championship series. The regular-season champion Majors (32-11) will host Birmingham-Southern in a best-of-3 on May 7-8. … Belhaven, which lost two of three to William Carey over the weekend, heads to the Southern States Athletic Conference Tournament as the 4-seed. The Blazers play Southern Poly on Tuesday at Columbus, Ga. Carey, seeded third, meets Mobile on Wednesday. … In the MACJC, ninth-ranked Pearl River Community College (36-10) won the South Division and will host Itawamba in a best-of-3 on Friday and Saturday. North champ Northeast hosts Gulf Coast. South No. 2 East Central will be at home to play Mississippi Delta and North No. 2 Northwest gets a visit from Jones County. … Blue Mountain will play top-seeded Bethel on Tuesday in the first round of the NAIA TranSouth/Gulf Coast Unaffiliated Group Championships. … Southern Miss tightened its grip on first place in Conference USA with a sweep of UAB at Taylor Park in Hattiesburg. The Golden Eagles are 13-5 in the league with two series to play. … With three SEC series remaining, Ole Miss (11-10) is fourth in the West and Mississippi State (10-11) is fifth. The Rebels lost two of three to Kentucky over the weekend, while State was getting swept by Vanderbilt.