Tag Archives: college baseball

16 May

numbers to crunch

13 – Wins in 13 weekend series finales by Southern Miss, which beat Louisiana Tech 2-0 on Sunday to improve to 36-15 on the season, 20-7 (first) in Conference USA.
30 – Runs, on 45 hits, piled up by Mississippi State in its weekend sweep at Auburn, coached by former State pitching coach Butch Thompson. The Bulldogs are 37-14-1, 18-9 SEC.
26 – Home wins, in 32 games, for Ole Miss (39-13, 17-10 SEC), which finished a sweep of Kentucky with Henri Lartigue’s walk-off home run on Saturday.
4 – Delta State’s seed in the NCAA Division II South Region tournament at Tampa, Fla. The Statesmen, 38-15 and Gulf South Conference champs, play 5-seed Lynn University on Thursday.
3 – Consecutive years William Carey has earned an NAIA regional bid. The Crusaders (37-19) play College of Idaho on Tuesday in Santa Barbara, Calif.
60 – Runs, leading the SWAC, by Jackson State’s Cornelius Copeland, who also is batting a league-high .421 for the Tigers (32-24) heading into the SWAC Tournament.
84 – Runs in five postseason games by East Central Community College, which won its fourth MACJC championship and will host the NJCAA Division II Region 23 Tournament this week in Decatur.

29 Apr

watch for it

Mississippi College makes its first trip since 1996 to Ferriss Field in Cleveland this weekend. It might not be great fun. Waiting there for the Choctaws is a nationally ranked Delta State team that leads the Gulf South Conference in nine offensive categories. MC, improved this year under first-year coach Jeremy Haworth, is 16-28, 7-23 in the GSC (still ineligible for the championship), and has a staff ERA of 5.29. DSU is 32-14, 21-9 and pushing hard for an NCAA Division II Tournament bid. The Statesmen are ranked No. 6 in the latest South Region rankings. MC trails in the all-time series with DSU 104-28-1, though the Choctaws did win one of three last year in Clinton. The teams will play two games on Saturday and a single game Sunday. … Other series to watch this weekend: There’s Mississippi State-Alabama and LSU-Ole Miss, of course, and Southern Miss faces what could be a big test at Florida Atlantic. The Owls are 28-11, 12-6 C-USA, just 2 games back of the first-place Golden Eagles (30-12, 14-4). FAU’s C.J. Cheatham, the league’s preseason payer of the year, is batting .365. … Jackson State, which is hosting Alabama A&M, is treading water in the SWAC East at 8-8, good for second place in the standings behind Alabama State, 18-0 and visiting Alcorn State this weekend. JSU’s Cornelius Copeland leads the SWAC in hitting at .423 and Jesus Santana leads in homers with 13. … William Carey (34-16, 16-7 SSAC) finishes its regular season at Loyola of New Orleans. Carey is third in the league; Faulkner has clinched the title. … Blue Mountain (22-31, 5-18 SSAC) needs to win two of three at Martin Methodist (20-22, 7-14) to earn a league tournament berth, according to the Toppers’ web site. … In the jucos, NJCAA No. 8-ranked Meridian is at No. 20 Northwest on Saturday in a battle of MACJC second-place clubs. The Eagles will then host No. 2 Jones County on Monday to end the regular season. JCJC (40-4, 23-3) has clinched the regular season crown.

24 Apr

around the horn

It’s a day for letting baseball just flow over you. … Rubber game today in Hattiesburg with the Conference USA lead at stake. Kirk McCarty (3-0, 3.51 ERA) for Southern Miss vs. Ricardo Salinas (6-1, 3.60) for Rice in what has been a pitching-dominated series at Taylor Park. … Mississippi State goes for a sweep at LSU. Reid Humphreys, the ex-Northwest Rankin High star, got an RBI and the save in Saturday’s 2-1 win. For the year, he’s hitting .328 with 15 doubles, four homers and 31 RBIs and he has five saves. … Ole Miss, going for a sweep against Auburn in Oxford, now has won 30 games for 19 straight seasons. Impressive. … Delta State left-hander Tre Hobbs beat Valdosta State in Cleveland on Saturday to improve to 11-1 with a 2.46 ERA and eight complete games. Nationally ranked in NCAA Division II, DSU is 32-13, 21-8 Gulf South. … There was a celebration in Itta Bena on Saturday. By Alabama State, which clinched the SWAC East with a 10-0 win over hapless Mississippi Valley State. ASU (17-0 in the league) won Friday’s opener 12-0. … William Carey University improved to 34-15 and 16-7 in the Southern States Athletic Conference by sweeping Brewton-Parker in Hattiesburg. The NAIA nationally ranked Crusaders are hitting .327 with 390 runs. … Millsaps’ season ended with a 13-11 loss to Birmingham-Southern in the Southern Athletic Association tournament. The Majors finished 20-21. … Belhaven lost its home finale to McMurry at Smith-Wills Stadium on Saturday, saying goodbye to 11 seniors and paying special tribute to Devin McCann, who died in a car accident just before the season began. … Mississippi College stopped an 11-game GSC losing streak with a 3-2 win against Lee in Clinton on Saturday. The Choctaws go for the series win today at Frierson Field. … Former Ole Miss star Chris Ellis, bucking for a call-up to the big leagues, threw six brilliant innings for the Mississippi Braves against Biloxi at Trustmark Park on Saturday. He got a no-decision in a game the M-Braves would ultimately lose but is 2-0 with a 1.16 ERA in four Double-A starts. He got a long look with Atlanta in spring training. … Ex-State standout Chad Girodo’s stay in MLB was short but sweet. He threw two scoreless innings in his debut for Toronto against Oakland on Friday but was shipped back to the minors on Saturday. … UM product Zack Cozart went 3-for-5 in Cincinnati’s 13-5 win over the Chicago Cubs on Saturday and is now batting .400 (20-for-50) on the year with a homer, five RBIs and 10 runs. … Anthony Alford, the former Mr. Baseball from Petal and a top-rated Toronto prospect, has not played since suffering a leg injury in his first game of the season at Class A Dunedin. The Blue Jays have been silent on his status.

20 Apr

campus notes

The Jones County Junior College express just keeps rolling on. The Bobcats, ranked fourth in the nation, beat Holmes Community College in Goodman 15-13 and 5-4 on Tuesday, improving to 18-2 in the MACJC and 35-3 overall under new coach Chris Kirtland. Over just its last 11 games, JCJC has won by scores of 11-1, 12-2, 13-3, 9-1, 13-3, 14-3, 20-1 and 8-3 before the sweep of Holmes. … Mississippi Gulf Coast CC’s Brian Lane was named MACJC player of the week after batting .571 with a homer and six RBIs and extending a hitting streak to 11 games in four contests last week. The Delta State signee is batting .411 on the year with 29 RBIs. … In Cleveland on Tuesday, DSU’s Will Robertson, having a monster season, went 4-for-6 with two doubles and a homer in a sweep of Ouachita Baptist. Robertson’s 26th double broke the school record held by, among others, Statesmen coach Mike Kinnison. Robertson, a redshirt senior from Falkner, is batting .451 with six homers and 59 RBIs for the 30-13 Statesmen, ranked 15th in NCAA Division II. … Logan Ferrell, Caleb Upton and Hunter Bolin combined for 10 hits as Mississippi College beat Belhaven University 13-9 on Tuesday at Smith-Wills Stadium in a game between Maloney Trophy Series combatants. MC went 2-0 against BU this season and beat Millsaps in their only meeting. … Millsaps (19-19), which wound up fourth in the Southern Athletic Association regular season, will play No. 5 seed Berry in the first round of tournament play on Friday at Birmingham-Southern. BSC, the regular season champ, opens with Sewanee in one of the two four-team, double-elimination pods. The winners from the two pods meet in a best-of-3 series for the SAA championship. … Here’s an interesting stat on Jackson State’s Jesus Santana. Of his 33 hits, 10 have left the park; he also has eight doubles. The Tigers (21-17) host the University of New Orleans tonight at Braddy Field. … Tate Blackman got a hit for Ole Miss on Tuesday, extending his streak of reaching base to 22 of 23 games as the Rebels whipped Memphis 7-0 at AutoZone Park. The nationally ranked Rebels (27-10) also blasted three homers in the minor league ballpark. … Southern Miss, also ranked in some polls, lost at Tulane 12-0 on Tuesday, perhaps looking ahead to the huge series against Rice this weekend in Hattiesburg. The Golden Eagles (27-11) and Owls are tied for first in C-USA at 12-3. … Mississippi State (24-12-1) takes its various national rankings to Biloxi tonight to play Louisiana-Monroe at MGM Park. ULM’s roster includes seven Mississippi juco products, among them ex-Hinds CC star Keller Bradford, son of former big leaguer Chad. Keller has a 2.78 ERA in 23 relief appearances for the Warhawks.

15 Apr

on the run

Funny, isn’t it, that leading scorers aren’t talked about in baseball the way they are in basketball, hockey or even football. Today, we fix that. Runs are the focus in previewing a weekend that’s practically overrun with big series. The leading scorer in the state among college players is Delta State’s Brandon Cummins, who has touched home plate 50 times in 38 games. The Drew native will lead the Statesmen into a key series in Cleveland this weekend, when DSU and West Florida, Gulf South Conference co-leaders at 18-6, meet at Ferriss Field. There’s another big series in Starkville, where Jacob Robson, with his 32 runs, will lead Mississippi State against Texas A&M in a battle of highly ranked SEC clubs. Nationally ranked Southern Miss — and leading scorer Dylan Burdeaux (34 runs) — takes its 11-1 C-USA record to Alabama-Birmingham. Will Golsan, who has 28 runs, leads nationally ranked Ole Miss (just 6-6 in the SEC) against Alabama in Tuscaloosa. Jackson State will count on a big weekend from leading scorer Jesus Santana (36 runs) when it plays a four-game SWAC set against Alcorn State, which is led by Wallace Rios (22 runs). Game 1 of the series is tonight at Biloxi’s MGM Park, the other three are at JSU’s Braddy Field. Both teams are 6-6 in the SWAC East. Tyler Richardson has scored 42 runs for NAIA nationally ranked William Carey, which travels to Bethel in Tennessee aiming to move up in the Southern States Athletic Conference standings. Millsaps, with Isaac Glenn (25 runs) fronting its charge, ends its regular season with a trip to Hendrix in Arkansas. The Majors are 17-18 and 10-8 in the Southern Athletic Association, which starts its postseason next week.

04 Apr

numbers to crunch

0 – Hits allowed by Hinds Community College’s Quinton Logan and Carlisle Koestler in a 4-1 win vs. Coahoma on Saturday.
1 – Losses in MACJC play by first-place Jones County JC, which has won 11 league games and is 28-2 overall.
4 – Wins for Kenny Wright and saves for Chris Guerin after the Millsaps duo combined to beat Sewanee 2-1 on Sunday and complete a Southern Athletic Association sweep at Twenty Field.
5 – Mississippi State’s rank (same as last week) in Baseball America’s poll after the Bulldogs whipped nationally ranked Ole Miss two of three in Starkville over the weekend.
6 – Number of former Mississippi Braves, including recent addition John Gant, on Atlanta’s opening day roster.
8 – Years since the Mississippi Braves won their only Southern League pennant. With an initial roster that includes two top 10 Atlanta prospects (Sean Newcomb and Ozzie Albies) and several other top 30-types from a replenished farm system, this year’s club could be a contender.
10 – Consecutive wins in Gulf South Conference play for nationally ranked Delta State, which swept Christian Brothers in Cleveland over the weekend to improve to 16-5 in the league and 23-10 overall.
17 – Hits by Southern Miss, including four by Tim Lynch, in a 16-6, sweep-completing win at Charlotte on Sunday. USM (22-7) has won six of seven games heading into Tuesday’s College Series clash with Ole Miss (21-7 with five losses in six games) at Pearl’s Trustmark Park.
25 – Wins for William Carey, which got a big hit from RBI leader Tyler Richardson in a 7-6, Southern States Athletic Conference series-clinching win against NAIA No. 3 Faulkner in Hattiesburg on Sunday. The Crusaders are 25-12.

20 Mar

names to know

In Nashville, Tenn., on Saturday night, under the SEC Network spotlight, Jake Mangum and Noah Hughes — freshmen and former Jackson Prep teammates –- played starring roles for Mississippi State in an SEC series-clinching win against Vanderbilt. Mangum had a go-ahead, two-run hit in the eighth inning and Hughes delivered two scoreless innings of relief in the 5-4 victory against a Commodores team ranked as high as No. 2 in the country. But those aren’t the only names to know today. Other Magnolia State players taking star turns this weekend: Southern Miss catcher Chuckie Robinson delivered a go-ahead hit and threw out a Marshall baserunner trying to steal in the eighth inning as the Golden Eagles won the rubber game of their C-USA series on Saturday. … Ole Miss’ Wyatt Short notched his fifth save of the year and 18th of his career as the Rebels beat Tennessee 6-4 on Saturday and evened their SEC series. … Wallace Rios of Alcorn State hit two homers and drove in six runs as the Braves beat Alabama A&M 15-13 in a SWAC contest. … Nick Lowe hit a game-tying sac fly and Cody Christian drew a bases-loaded walk in the bottom of the ninth to give William Carey a 5-4 win over visiting Blue Mountain in a Southern States Athletic Conference game. … Garrett Odom blasted two homers and knocked in six runs to pace Mississippi College to a 13-7 Gulf South Conference win against Christian Brothers. …. Terrell Hodges went 6-for-12 with six runs, three RBIs and two steals as Belhaven swept Louisiana College in an American Southwest Conference series at Smith-Wills Stadium. … Millsaps’ Brennan Ducote had two hits and two RBIs to spark the Majors to a 4-1 win over Southern Athletic Association rival Rhodes in Game 2 of a Saturday twinbill. … And in Cleveland, where Delta State swept a GSC doubleheader from Alabama-Huntsville, ranked No. 9 in NCAA Division II, the heroes were many. Lefties Justin Vincent and Tre Hobbs threw complete games; Ben Pickard drove in seven runs; Brandon Cummins scored five times; and Trent Giambroni hit his seventh homer.

18 Mar

small talk

The state’s small colleges will roll out the welcome mats this weekend, with Delta State, Mississippi College, Belhaven and Millsaps hosting out-of-state guests for conference series. Also on the agenda are two matchups of in-state rivals: Rust at Tougaloo and Blue Mountain at William Carey. Tougaloo just beat Rust twice (13-0 and 15-1) in Holly Springs on Thursday; they’ll play another twinbill on Saturday. The BMC-Carey series (single game today, two on Saturday at Wheeler Field in Hattiesburg) should be more competitive. Maybe. Carey is 18-8 and 4-2 in the Southern States Athletic Conference. The visiting Toppers are 13-13 and 0-6. Led by Tyler Odom (.416), Carey is batting .319 as a team. The Crusaders’ pitching also has been very good, posting a 2.81 ERA. Coach Bobby Halford has a stable of starters to choose from, including Devin Smith (3-0, 1.64 ERA) and J.D. Little (4-1, 3.50). For BMC, All-SSAC first baseman Seth Davis has scuffled (.227), but Miciah Heard has been hot (.325) and Caleb Leach has four homers in 33 at-bats. The key for Curt Fowler’s Toppers might be how well their pitching staff (6.90 ERA) handles Odom and Co. P.S. In juco land, the state’s two big dogs will be on home turf on Saturday. Jones County Junior College (19-1, 2-0 MACJC) will host East Mississippi Community College (4-14, 0-2). Mason Irby and Erick Hoard have combined for 13 bombs for the Bobcats; Hoard hit a grand slam and a three-run shot in a sweep of East Central on Wednesday. Meridian CC (17-1, 2-0) welcomes Copiah-Lincoln (5-10, 1-1). Jones and Meridian were rained out of their big showdown last weekend; it has been rescheduled for May 2, the end of the regular season.

16 Mar

ups and downs

Tuesday was a happening day. In Hattiesburg, Southern Miss enjoyed one of those games you’d like to bottle and store. Ole Miss traveled to Birmingham and rolled to its 11th straight win. At Braddy Field in Jackson, Jackson State overwhelmed LeMoyne-Owen with a 43-run barrage. But there was no joy in Starkville, where Mississippi State blew a six-run lead in the eighth inning and lost 16-12 to Eastern Kentucky in extras. Let’s start at Taylor Park, where the Golden Eagles beat Alabama 9-2. A crowd of 3,577 saw USM (14-4) get 15 hits against a good Bama staff. Sizzling Jake Sandlin went 4-for-4, Hunter Slater got three hits and Dylan Burdeaux clubbed his third homer. Nick Johnson worked a masterful 6 2/3 innings for his first win. Michael Gilbert made a huge play at third base. “You can’t ask for more,” catcher Chuckie Robinson said in a school release. Nationally ranked Ole Miss is now 16-1 after routing UAB 8-1, getting homers from Henri Lartigue and Cameron Dishon. The Rebels scored three in the first inning, the 10th time this year they’ve scored in the opening frame. Jackson State (9-7) used seven homers to crush an overmatched LeMoyne-Owen 23-2 and 20-3. Anthony Stricklin went yard in both games. But at Dudy Noble Field, things went horribly wrong. Nathaniel Lowe, the power-hitting juco transfer, blasted his first homer and drove in seven runs as State built a 12-6 lead through seven. Stunningly, EKU tied it with a six-run eighth, then put up four in the 10th to win it. Four Bulldogs relievers yielded 14 earned runs over the final six innings. State, climbing in the national polls after its sweep of Oregon over the weekend, dips to 12-4-1. While USM, UM and JSU players are walking tall today, it might be the Bulldogs who are most eager to get back on the field. They’ll want to put Tuesday’s clunker behind them, and they get that chance tonight at home against Oral Roberts.

14 Mar

centerpieces

Mississippi State’s sweep of Oregon got top billing in the college weekend wrap-up on Baseball America’s web site. The host Bulldogs (12-3-1) put up 24 runs on 33 hits against the Ducks’ vaunted pitching staff. State had a bunch of heroes, but Brent Rooker stood out with a 6-for-11 effort, two homers and five RBIs. He is batting .377 – third among State regulars — and leads the club with 20 RBIs. State jumped from 24th to 15th in the new BA poll, while Oregon dropped from No. 11 to 19. … Ole Miss, BA’s No. 12 team, swept three from Grambling State in Oxford to improve to 15-1. The Big Man on Campus for the Rebels was Brady Bramlett, who beat the Tigers (five shutout innings, 11 strikeouts) to move to 4-0 with a 2.14 ERA, 30 K’s in 21 innings. … Jake Sandlin went off for Southern Miss as the Golden Eagles (13-4) took two of three from visiting Samford. The Georgia College transfer, an NCAA Division II All-America last year, went 6-for-12 with five RBIs and three runs. He is batting .350 for the year. … Delta State (13-9, 7-5) salvaged the final game of its Gulf South Conference series against West Georgia. Will Robertson was 2-for-5 in the 6-3 win, recording his 14th multi-hit game and boosting his average to .429 (with 23 RBIs and 20 runs). … Millsaps used a seven-run ninth inning rally to beat Center 9-7 on Saturday and claim the Southern Athletic Association series. Freshman Brennan Ducote had the go-ahead hit, a two-run single, for the Majors (8-8, 4-2). … Delta State transfer Tanner Cable got the win, his fourth, as Belhaven crushed Eureka College 15-1 on Saturday. Cable is 4-0 with a 2.08 ERA for the Division III Blazers (8-4). … Blue Mountain, forced to play NAIA No. 3 Faulkner on the road instead of in New Albany, was outscored 43-5 in losing three straight. … In the only MACJC doubleheader completed over the weekend, Hinds Community College beat Itawamba CC 17-6 and 4-3, getting 24 hits and four home runs in the process at Jackson’s Smith-Wills Stadium. The Eagles are 9-7, the Indians 12-6.