Auburn Archives - All Mississippi Baseball

whatever happened to …

Bryson Ware, the ex-Germantown High and Pearl River Community College slugger, is now mashing for Auburn. Batting third and playing third base on Thursday night, Ware went 2-for-6 with a home run, a double, two runs and three RBIs as the Tigers beat visiting Georgia 7-6 in 11 innings for their first SEC win. Ware’s two-run double in the ninth made it a 6-5 game, and the 6-foot-2, 211-pound senior then scored the tying run. Ware, who set a single-season homer record at Germantown, is batting .415 with 10 homers and 26 RBIs this season. His 10 homers are tied for fourth-best in the league — Mississippi State’s Hunter Hines also has 10 — and his .902 slugging percentage ranks third. P.S. Jared Shuster, a Southern League All-Star with the Mississippi Braves in 2022 and Atlanta’s No. 1 prospect, threw six impressive innings against the New York Mets on Thursday and may now be the front-runner for the fifth starter job. The left-hander has a 1.45 ERA in five spring games. With former M-Braves star Michael Soroka having been optioned to Triple-A, Shuster’s main competition for the starting job is fellow 2022 M-Braves alum Dylan Dodd, the Braves’ No. 10 prospect. … Atlanta’s minor league system is ranked No. 30 — last — in MLB Pipeline’s latest evaluation of prospect talent. The Braves have no players in the Top 100, though it’s hard to figure how Shuster didn’t make that list. He went 7-8 with a 2.78 ERA in Double-A last year and made the All-Star Futures Game. … Milwaukee’s system ranks 15th, led by a quartet of former Biloxi Shuckers outfielders: Jackson Chourio, Sal Frelick, Joey Wiemer and Garrett Mitchell, who is the likely opening day center fielder for the Brewers. … Nine M-Braves alums played for Atlanta in Thursday’s 2-2 tie vs. the Mets. One Shuckers product played: big league vet Orlando Arcia, who beat out Vaughn Grissom and Braden Shewmake for the starting shortstop job. Wonder how long that will last? … The M-Braves and New South Radio announced that all 138 M-Braves broadcasts will air on WIIN 780 AM and 102.1 FM The Box this season. Chris Harris and Jack Sadighian are back as the broadcasters.

meanwhile, out west …

While much of the state’s attention will be focused on Hattiesburg’s Super Regional this weekend, some will be keeping track of the events in Corvallis, Ore., and Palo Alto, Calif. Auburn, coached by Amory’s Butch Thompson, is in the Super Regional hosted by Oregon State. (The winner of that best-of-3 series is paired against the winner of Ole Miss-Southern Miss in the first round of the College World Series.) On the Tigers’ roster is former Germantown High and Pearl River Community College star Bryson Ware, batting .228 in 47 games. Thompson is in his seventh season as coach of the Tigers, the No. 14 national seed. He played at Amory High and Itawamba Community College — he is in the Indians’ Hall of Fame — and served as an assistant coach at Mississippi State from 2009-15. In Palo Alto, you’ll find Braden Montgomery, the ex-Madison Central star and 2021 Gatorade player of the year who is one of the key players for Stanford, the No. 2 national seed. The Cardinal is playing host to UConn. Montgomery, the Cardinal right fielder, is hitting .301 with 16 homers and 51 RBIs. The Pac-12 freshman of the year has also pitched in 15 games, posting a 5.79 ERA. The Palo Alto Super Regional is in the same CWS bracket as Hattiesburg and Corvallis.