Tag Archives: college baseball

30 Mar

worth noting

The Gwinnett Stripers, Atlanta’s Triple-A club, opened their season Friday and Southern Miss alum Hurston Waldrep was not on the roster. That has fueled speculation that the Braves’ No. 2 prospect will start the season with the Double-A Mississippi Braves, who open next week. Waldrep posted a 1.53 ERA (and 41 strikeouts in 29 1/3 innings) over four levels of the minors in 2023, after being drafted in the first round out of Florida. He allowed no runs in 4 1/3 innings in the Grapefruit League for Atlanta this spring. … Ex-Mississippi State standout Jake Mangum homered in his first Triple-A game on Friday for Durham (Tampa Bay system) and threw out a base runner from center field. … USM product Chuckie Robinson, starting at catcher, got a hit and threw out a runner attempting to steal in his debut with the Chicago White Sox’s Triple-A Charlotte club. … Perhaps disappointed not to make the New York Yankees’ 26-man roster, ex-Jackson Prep star Will Warren allowed three hits, three walks and five runs while getting just one out in his start for Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. … Former Ole Miss star Drew Pomeranz has signed a minor league contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers after being released by the Angels. … Tim Anderson, ex-East Central Community College standout, is 3-for-8 in his first two games for Miami, where he signed as a free agent after the White Sox cut him loose after last season. … In college ball, the state’s six NCAA Division I schools went 0-6 Friday, the most glaring loss suffered by Alcorn State, a 29-3 loser at Arkansas-Pine Bluff. Also of note: Mississippi State squandered a 6-2 lead in the eighth inning and fell at Florida 7-6.

22 Mar

up and running

After stumbling out of the blocks this season, William Carey University may be hitting its stride. The Crusaders (15-9) have won five straight, including a conference sweep at Thomas University (Ga.) last weekend, and host sub-.500 SSAC foe Tennessee Southern this weekend (Saturday-Sunday) in Hattiesburg. Carey was ranked No. 4 in the NAIA preseason poll, coming off a World Series appearance, but lost its opener at home to 10th-ranked Missouri Baptist and wobbled through February. “It’s a long season and I think we’ll be fine,” longtime coach Bobby Halford said last month, acknowledging that some new faces would have to step up. The Crusaders are 7-3 in March. They fell out of the national rankings last week but appear poised to climb back in with a stretch of 10 straight games upcoming at Wheeler Field. Preseason NAIA All-America pick R.J. Stinson has played like one — batting .469 with four homers, 27 RBIs and 32 runs — and he has started to get some help from the rebuilt lineup. Bailee Hendon, a senior from Vancleave, is batting .299 with four homers and 27 RBIs, and Jerod Williams, junior from Gulfport via Southwest Mississippi Community College, is at .292 with 13 steals and 25 runs. Dario Herrera, a lefty from Panama, has posted a 4-1 record with a 4.46 ERA and 2023 ace Andrew Shirah is 3-2, 4.40. The glue of the pitching staff has been closer John Snyder, who has six saves and a 0.82 in 10 appearances. Carey is 7-5 in the SSAC. UT Southern is 5-7. P.S. Blue Mountain Christian’s Arderrius “Peeko” Townsend leads NAIA in homers (18) and RBIs (60) and ranks seventh in batting average (.484). The Toppers (20-8, 6-7) lost Game 1 today of an SSAC series against visiting Middle Georgia State. … Jackson State, coming off a rough loss at New Orleans on Wednesday, hosts rival Mississippi Valley State in a SWAC series this weekend. The Tigers are 16-5 and 2-0 in the league. … Alcorn State (1-13), which got its first win against Valley at Itta Bena on Wednesday, is playing a SWAC series vs. Southern University at Jackson’s Smith-Wills Stadium. … The state’s Big 3 NCAA Division I schools are on the road for league series this weekend: Mississippi State lost to Texas A&M on Thursday night, while tonight Ole Miss opens at Tennessee and Southern Miss at Georgia Southern.

20 Mar

there and here

The Los Angeles Dodgers won the first game of the MLB season today in Seoul, South Korea, beating San Diego 5-2. Mississippi Braves alum Evan Phillips registered the first save of 2024. And Mississippian Lance Barksdale, working the plate, registered the first umpire’s interference call of the season, which he called on himself in the first inning for inadvertently disrupting the catcher’s throw to second base on a steal attempt. … On this date in 1981, former big leaguer Gerald “Gee” Walker died at age 73. The Gulfport native and ex-Ole Miss star has a historic connection to MLB’s opening day, having hit for the cycle on April 20, 1937, for Detroit. It is the only opening day cycle in major league history. … The projected starting pitchers announced Tuesday for MLB’s stateside version of opening day include two Mississippi natives (Justin Steele and Garrett Crochet), two M-Braves alums (Spencer Strider and Alex Wood) and two ex-Biloxi Shuckers standouts (Freddy Peralta and Corbin Burnes). … In a 3-hour, 4-minute game that “featured” 12 pitchers, a 14-pitch at-bat, 17 hits and 20 strikeouts, Ole Miss beat Southern Miss 8-3 Tuesday night at Trustmark Park in Pearl. The most eye-catching number from the game was 3,269 — the announced attendance, surely a disappointment to all involved. … At Trustmark tonight, NCAA Division III rivals Millsaps and Belhaven will play the first game of the Maloney Trophy Series. The opener of the three-game series was originally scheduled for March 5 at Millsaps’ Twenty Field but was rained out. … At Starkville, Dakota Jordan hit yet another home run, his 11th in 22 games, as surging Mississippi State whipped Memphis 17-9. … Jackson State swiped five more bases, boosting its season total to a national-best 67, in a 13-3 rout of Arkansas-Pine Bluff at Braddy Field. Jordan McCladdie got two bags Tuesday and has 15 for the year for JSU, 16-4 with six straight wins. … Top-ranked East Central Community College swept a doubleheader at Hinds (12-2 and 5-0) to improve to 30-0. No. 5 Pearl River took two from No. 12 Meridian (14-2 and 5-2) to improve to 28-5 with 15 straight wins. (ECCC and PRCC are slated to meet April 17 at Poplarville.) … Big league veteran Mike Mayers, an Ole Miss product, has signed a minor league deal with Toronto. He pitched in the Kansas City and Chicago White Sox systems in 2023. … Former Petal High star Demarcus Evans, an erstwhile big leaguer, has signed with Yucatan of the Mexican League. Evans did not pitch in a game in 2023 because of injury.

18 Mar

cue the highlights

One series into the conference season, Southern Miss, Mississippi State and Ole Miss already have great material for their 2024 highlight reels. USM (14-6) swept three from visiting Marshall. Take your pick of the biggest moment at Taylor Park: Lawson Odom scoring the game-winner in the 13th inning Saturday on a controversial catcher’s interference/obstruction call at home plate … or Carson Paetow’s game-turning three-run homer in the seventh inning of Sunday’s 7-5 win. MSU (15-6) run-ruled defending national champ LSU in Sunday’s rubber game, winning 15-5 in eight innings. Dudy Noble Field hit a fever pitch when Dakota Jordan and Hunter Hines belted back-to-back homers in the fifth inning that broke a 3-3 tie and put the Bulldogs up 7-3. Ole Miss (15-6) took two of three from South Carolina, including an emphatic 12-3 win at Swayze Field on Saturday that featured three homers by Andrew Fischer, the slugging transfer from Duke. Forget college basketball for a moment. Baseball March Madness will continue in Mississippi on Tuesday when USM and Ole Miss meet at Trustmark Park in Pearl while State takes on Memphis in Starkville.

11 Mar

and that happened …

With Myles White and Robert Tate delivering RBI hits in the 10th inning and freshman Shemar Harris notching a clean save, Jackson State beat host Memphis 6-4 in Sunday’s finale of the Grind City Classic. The JSU bullpen didn’t allow a hit or run over the final 4 1/3. JSU (12-4) won two of three in the four-team event. … Blue Mountain Christian (16-5) swept an SSAC series at Mobile, winning Sunday’s finale 18-2 as Arderrius Townsend — remember that name — belted two homers and drove in six runs. He has 12 homers for the year and is batting .479. … Dakota Jordan homered in all three games — he has eight for the season — as Mississippi State (12-4 with nine straight wins) swept past Evansville in Starkville. Hunter Hines, who hit 38 homers for the Bulldogs in 2022-23 and 13 in the Cape Cod League last summer, got homer No. 1 of ’24 in Saturday’s game. … Ole Miss (12-5) scored 29 runs in a home sweep of Morehead State plus got a sterling pitching effort from Grayson Saunier (3-1, 2.55 ERA), who tossed five shutout innings on Sunday before the bullpen nearly coughed up the W. … East Central Community College blew past Coahoma in a twinbill on Sunday to reach 25-0. Twenty-five and oh. … Southern Miss (10-6) won two of three and scored 31 runs in its series at Louisiana Tech but allowed 18 runs in the loss on Sunday, when the Golden Eagles trotted out 12 pitchers. Twelve. … Millsaps College, playing at home, lost two of three to SAA foe Rhodes, and ace Wil Wood allowed 13 hits and 10 runs in four innings in one of the defeats. … Delta State allowed 30 runs in losing two of three GSC games at Alabama-Huntsville. The Statesmen are 13-10 despite a 6.47 ERA. … Mississippi College used two sac flies and an RBI HBP to score a walk-off win against West Florida — the No. 8 team in NCAA Division II — but the Choctaws lost the other two games of the GSC series. … Belhaven University also got a walk-off win on a clutch knock by Josh Neutze but fell in the other two weekend contests against Hanover at Trustmark Park.

09 Mar

in the spotlight

Millsaps College’s Wil Wood will make his next start in what has been a dominant season when the Majors begin Southern Athletic Association play this weekend (today-Sunday at Twenty Field) against rival Rhodes. Grad student Wood, a 6-foot-4, 218-pound left-hander, is 3-0 with a 0.72 ERA and national-best 43 strikeouts in 25 innings for the NCAA Division III Majors (10-4). Wood was the D-III pitcher of the month for February, when he threw a no-hitter. The Memphis native is no flash in the pan: He won 17 games over the previous two years for the Majors. … Dakota Jordan, the ex-Jackson Academy star now at Mississippi State, went 4-for-4 with a homer Friday as the Bulldogs (10-4) beat Evansville 5-2 for their seventh straight win. Jordan has 13 hits, including three homers, during State’s win streak and is batting .396 with six bombs and 20 RBIs on the season. He hit the game-deciding homer against Southern Miss on Tuesday at Pearl’s Trustmark Park. … USM’s Billy Butler blasted two home runs in a 9-4 win at Louisiana Tech on Friday and has now homered in three straight games, including a big bomb at Trustmark Park in the loss to State. USM (9-5) plays LaTech (12-2) again today in Game 2 of the non-conference series. A senior transfer from Rhode Island, the 6-2, 234-pound Butler was an All-Atlantic 10 pick in 2023 and hit 19 homers in his Rams career. In nine games for USM, he is batting .423 with a team-best four homers and six RBIs. … Jackson State’s Joseph Eichelberger, whose hot hitting has drawn a lot of attention, went 0-for-4 in a loss against Presbyterian on Friday in the opener of the Grind City Classic at Memphis. The juco transfer will take a .511 average (and 22 RBIs) into today’s game against Butler. The Tigers (10-4) will also play host Memphis on Sunday.

05 Mar

have a day

There are compelling matchups everywhere you look today in the Magnolia State. (Here’s hoping the weather cooperates.) At Pearl’s Trustmark Park, Southern Miss and Mississippi State renew their neutral-site rivalry. At Twenty Field in Jackson, Millsaps hosts Belhaven in the opener of the Maloney Trophy Series. At Braddy Field in Jackson, Jackson State hosts Rust in a doubleheader. And at Swayze Field in Oxford, Ole Miss will play Memphis, which is coached by a Mississippi native and suits up several others. (For the record: On Wednesday, at Sanders Field in Jackson, Tougaloo will host Blue Mountain Christian.) Both USM and State have 8-4 records, and they have split their last 10 meetings. There will be a huge and vocal crowd at the TeePee for that clash, a smaller but no less fired-up gathering at Twenty Field, where NCAA Division III rivals Millsaps (10-4) and BU (7-6) meet for the first of three games. (A Wil Wood-Brett Sanchez pitching matchup might be too much to hope for.) Jackson State (9-3) beat NAIA member Rust 18-1 and 12-1 in 2023. Perhaps the Bearcats (3-15) can put up more of a fight this time. In Oxford, Ole Miss takes an 8-5 record into its game with familiar foe Memphis (7-6), which is now coached by Picayune native Matt Riser. The Tigers’ director of pitching development is Oxford native Chase Kessinger, Keith’s son, Don’s grandson, Grae’s cousin. P.S. Former Madison Central High star Braden Montgomery, now at Texas A&M, aspires to be “the best baseball player ever,” he said in a Monday interview on MLB Network’s Hot Stove. The switch-hitting outfielder, on the Golden Spikes Award watch list, is batting .410 with five homers and 21 RBIs for the Aggies, 11-0 heading into a showdown tonight at archrival Texas. “The most important part is we’re winning,” Montgomery said.

04 Mar

numbers to crunch

Cleaning up after the busy weekend in college baseball:
4 — Runs allowed by Mississippi State pitchers in a sweep of Mount St. Mary’s. The Bulldogs (8-4) have a staff ERA of 3.82; Nate Dohm (2-0) has a 1.02 and Jurrangelo Cijntje (2-0) a 1.15.
19 — RBIs this season by Ole Miss’ Jackson Ross. The Florida Atlantic transfer is batting .390 with five homers and 17 runs for the 8-5 Rebels, who took two of three from Iowa.
77 — Walks drawn by Southern Miss batters this season. The Golden Eagles, 8-4 after taking the series from Indiana State, have a team on-base percentage of .393 while batting just .239.
.639 — Batting average for Jackson State’s Joseph Eichelberger, who has also driven in 21 runs and scored 15 in 11 games for the Tigers, 9-3 after a sweep of winless Alcorn State (0-9).
3 — Straight wins for Mississippi Valley State (4-3), which swept new coach C.J. Bilbrey’s former school, Harris-Stowe State, by a count of 47-9.
14 — Runs scored by Delta State after having its seven-game win streak snapped in a shutout by Montevallo. The Statesmen (12-6) were powered by Matthew Nichols, who went 3-for-4 with four RBIs and three runs in the 14-10 win in Game 2 of a Saturday twinbill.
30 — Home runs by Mississippi College batters. Wesley Sides and Caleb Reese have seven bombs each for the 9-6 Choctaws, who have dropped three straight.
.517 — On-base percentage of William Carey’s R.J. Stinson. Stinson, a .375 hitter, has 24 hits, 17 walks and just four strikeouts in 64 at-bats for the 10-8 Crusaders.
64 — Run differential for Blue Mountain Christian. The Toppers (12-5) have outscored their opponents 158-94; Hayden Redding leads the team with 24 runs.
7 — One-run games played by Millsaps (10-4). The Majors are 5-2 in those games, including a 1-0 loss at Huntingdon (Ala.) on Sunday.
22 — RBIs by Belhaven’s Owen Abney. Jackson Prep alum Abney, batting .275 with three homers, has driven in 37 percent of the runs scored by the Blazers (7-6).

27 Feb

leading the way

Pearl River Community College swept the MACCC individual honors for last week, with Hollis Porter taking the hitting award and J.P. Robertson the pitching laurels. Porter, from Hurley, hit .450 with three homers and 10 RBIs during No. 3 PRCC’s 4-2 week. The lefty slugger is tied for the NJCAA Division II lead with nine homers. Ex-Germantown High star Robertson threw six shutout innings, with nine strikeouts, in the Wildcats’ win over No. 20 Parkland. Robertson is 4-0 with a 3.00 ERA for 14-5 PRCC. … Barret Rodgers leads the nation with 30 RBIs for undefeated (16-0), 10th-ranked East Central CC, and Hinds CC’s Lincoln Sheffield is tied for the national lead with 37 strikeouts in 23 innings. … Jackson State’s Joseph Eichelberger, a junior outfielder from Georgia via Paul D. Camp CC, leads NCAA Division I in batting with a .692 average. … For the second time this season, Millsaps’ Wil Wood has earned the Southern Athletic Association pitcher of the week honor. Wood, a grad student, threw a no-hitter with 16 strikeouts against Westminster. He is 2-0 with a 1.00 ERA and 34 K’s on the season for the 8-3 Majors. … Mississippi College leads the Gulf South Conference in hitting with a .326 team average, followed by Delta State at .325. The Choctaws, 9-5 and 3-3 in the GSC, lead the league with 30 homers, topped by former DeSoto Central and East Mississippi CC standout Wesley Sides, who has seven bombs and a .488 average. DSU (9-5, 3-0) is also second in the GSC in runs with 122, having tallied 29 in a three-game sweep at Union University over the weekend. … William Carey University’s John Snyder is tied for the NAIA national lead with five saves. Rust’s Jalik Demar and Blue Mountain’s Hayden Redding are tied for third nationally with 13 stolen bases each.

26 Feb

sunday punch

While it is much too early in the NCAA Division I season for defining moments, Mississippi’s Big 3 did deliver affirming wins on Sunday. Mississippi State, Ole Miss and Southern Miss each won the rubber game in a home series against an unheralded opponent. At Hattiesburg, USM (6-2) rallied to beat Missouri State 5-4. Four Golden Eagles pitchers allowed just one earned run and struck out 17 batters. Davis Gillespie and Seth Smith produced clutch hits, freshman Smith’s RBI double giving the Eagles the lead in the sixth inning at Taylor Park. At Oxford, where Rebel Nation has grown restless, Ole Miss (4-4) lowered the boom on High Point with a 25-2 victory. The Rebels smacked five homers, three doubles and a triple among 16 hits. Duke transfer Andrew Fischer, who had been scuffling, went 3-for-4 with a homer, four RBIs and four runs. Four UM pitchers yielded six hits, three walks and fanned 11 at Swayze Field. At Starkville, where things also seem a bit unsettled, State (4-4) whipped Georgia Southern 10-2. David Mershon put up a 4-for-5 with two RBIs, and Bryce Chance and Connor Hujsak drove in three runs each. Jurrangelo Cijntje delivered a much-needed strong start (five innings, one run) at Dudy Noble Field. What’s next? USM plays Nicholls State on Tuesday at MGM Park in Biloxi. Ole Miss hosts Arkansas-Little Rock on Tuesday. And that same day, State welcomes Jackson State (6-2), which is coming off a 7-3 loss to Mississippi Valley State. It was the first win for new Valley coach C.J. Bilbrey, who had seen his club crushed by the Tigers in the first two games of the non-league series. Jesus Campa, a transfer from El Paso Community College, worked eight solid innings for Valley.