Tag Archives: d1baseball.com

18 Apr

answering the bell

Southern Miss, Ole Miss and Jackson State each dealt with a sense of urgency on Thursday. Two of them — USM and JSU — got the result they needed. In Hattiesburg, the Golden Eagles faced Georgia State on Hill Denson Bobblehead Night with an announced 5,408, including the former coach, on hand at Taylor Park. If ever there was a must-win game … . USM made the Hall of Fame coach proud with an 8-1 win, belting five homers to back the brilliant pitching of J.B. Middleton. Nick Monistere hit his 13th homer — fifth in three games — and Middleton (7-1) tossed eight innings (three hits, one run, 12 strikeouts) as USM moved to 26-12, 11-5 Sun Belt. At Braddy Field in Jackson, JSU, which had lost seven of eight, rode a dominant outing from Erick Gonzalez to a 2-0 victory against Alabama A&M. Gonzalez (4-3) worked 8 2/3, allowing six hits and punching out 10. The Tigers (18-17, 6-10 SWAC) cobbled together two runs in the second inning on a sac bunt, an error and a sac fly. Alas, Ole Miss, coming off a clunky home loss to Arkansas-Little Rock, went to Columbia, S.C., and dropped a 3-2 decision to South Carolina, one of the worst teams in the SEC at 3-13. Hunter Elliott (5-2) allowed three runs in 5 1/3 innings to take a hard-luck loss for the nationally ranked Rebels (27-11, 9-7 SEC). UM has lost three in a row and four of five. … Incidentally, d1baseball.com projects Ole Miss to host a regional that will include USM. The website also put Mississippi State in the 64-team field. The Bulldogs (23-14, 5-10) open a big SEC series today against Florida (25-14, 4-11) at Starkville. … Also on tap this weekend: William Carey University visits Blue Mountain Christian in an SCAC series. Ranked No. 9 in NAIA, Carey (31-9, 20-4) leads 34-8 in the all-time series with BMC. But the Toppers (21-22, 10-14) won the regular season series in 2024 before losing a league tournament game to the Crusaders. P.S. In MLB: Cool moment at Steinbrenner Field in Tampa on Thursday when Tampa Bay’s Jake Mangum faced former Jackson Prep teammate Will Warren, the New York Yankees’ starting pitcher, in the second inning. Mangum hit a high hopper that Warren fielded, but with no one covering first base for some reason, Mangum got an infield hit. That was the rookies’ only clash. Mangum had two hits to raise his average to .345; Warren (5.17 ERA) lasted just 1 2/3 innings, yielding one run. The Yanks won 6-3. … Former Jackson Mets and big league manager Clint Hurdle is the new hitting coach for Colorado, which dismissed Hensley Meulens on Thursday.

07 Dec

names and numbers

There hasn’t been much activity on the major league free agent market, but that will change soon. Juan Soto, the biggest fish in the pond, likely will sign — for $600 million-plus — next week during the Winter Meetings. That figures to trigger a lot of movement in the market. Quite a few Mississippians with MLB experience are out there looking for a 2025 team. Some could get big bucks. The list includes: Madison Central High alum Spencer Turnbull; ex-Ole Miss star Lance Lynn; former Mississippi State standout Kendall Graveman; MSU alum Adam Frazier; former Bulldogs star Ethan Small; ex-East Central Community College standout Tim Anderson; MSU product and Pascagoula native Konnor Pilkington; and Michael Rucker, a Columbus native. Of note: Lynn, 37, a 13-year MLB vet, recently told the New York Times that he has dropped 20 pounds this off-season and has received numerous calls from MLB clubs about pitching next season. He had a 3.84 ERA with St. Louis in 2024, when balky knees limited him to 23 starts. … Two state prep players made MLB Pipeline’s latest Top 100 draft prospects chart for 2025: Pitcher Landon Harmon of East Union High at No. 49 and shortstop JoJo Parker of Purvis at 86. The 6-foot-5 Harmon, the Class 2A player of the year, is a Mississippi State commit who pitched in the MLB-sponsored High School All-America Game at Petco Park last summer. Parker, a lefty hitter, is also an MSU commit. His twin brother, outfielder Jacob, won a share of the high school home run derby competition during the MLB All-Star festivities last summer and will get some scouts’ attention, as well. Only one high school player was drafted from the state in 2024: No. 9 overall pick Konnor Griffin of Jackson Prep. Also making MLB Pipeline’s new draft list at No. 66 is LSU’s Conner Ware, an injury-prone lefty from Germantown via Pearl River Community College. No players from Mississippi’s four-year schools cracked the Top 100. … Three state juco products made the top nine in d1baseball.com’s list of the Top 50 impact juco hitters now at NCAA Division I schools: Pearl River CC’s Bryce Fowler (now at Alabama) is No. 6, Mississippi Gulf Coast’s Brandon Cain (Oklahoma) No. 7 and PRCC’s Hollis Porter (Maryland) No. 9. Porter was the MACCC player of the year and a first-team NJCAA Division II All-America pick. Hinds product Thomas Marsala (Western Kentucky) was ranked 48th. … William Carey University, which went 37-16 in 2024 and made yet another trip to the NAIA World Series, is ranked ninth in the NAIA coaches preseason poll. Carey was the preseason No. 4 in 2024.

23 Jan

poll positions

To the list of life’s certainties, you can add this: When an NJCAA poll comes out, several Mississippi schools will be near the top. The Division II preseason poll was released Monday and three state jucos are ranked in the top 13: Pearl River Community College is No. 3, East Central No. 10 and Meridian No. 13. PRCC went 45-13 in 2023 and returns left-hander Conner Ware, an LSU signee, and Jonah Katsaboulas, an infielder who hit .292 last season. The Wildcats open Jan. 30 in Poplarville against Coastal Alabama South. ECCC won the state and Region 23 championships last year and welcomes back second-team All-America Mo Little, who hit .340 with 12 homers as a freshman. … Preseason polls can and often do miss the mark. Case in point: William Carey University wasn’t ranked in the NAIA coaches preseason poll in 2023 but went 49-11 and reached the World Series. The Crusaders are ranked fourth in the 2024 preseason poll, which was released back in the fall. … Neither Ole Miss nor Mississippi State, both coming off rough years, appears in the d1baseball.com Top 25. But, in the site’s 2024 transfer class rankings, UM checks in at No. 7 — ex-Arizona State shortstop Luke Hill being the most notable newcomer — and State at No. 24. In the site’s freshman class rankings, State is No. 9 and UM No. 15. … Jackson State is ranked No. 5 in Black College Nine’s HBCU large school rankings and Rust College is No. 3 in the small school class. JSU finished 28-25 in 2023. Rust, an NAIA member, went 25-25 and won the regular season title in the Gulf Coast Athletic Conference. P.S. The new National Baseball Hall of Fame class will be announced today, and there is a decent chance that former Jackson Generals pitcher Billy Wagner will make the cut for Cooperstown.