Tag Archives: East Central Community College

12 Jun

here and there

Southern Miss, which plays Tennessee today in Hattiesburg for a trip to the College World Series, isn’t just a Mississippi-based team. It’s a Mississippi-fueled team. Twenty Magnolia State natives dot the roster, including regulars Dustin Dickerson, Slade Wilks, Nick Monistere, Carson Paetow and Tate Parker. Today’s probable starter, Niko Mazza, is also a state product. Incidentally, USM’s 2009 team, the only one to make it to Omaha, also featured 20 Mississippi natives, most notably Brian Dozier, future big league star. … Also vying for a CWS trip today is Stanford, playing a Game 3 at home against Texas. Former Madison Central standout Braden Montgomery, an All–Pac-12 selection this year, is 4-for-9 with a walk and pair of runs in that Super Regional. … Former USM pitcher Hurston Waldrep, now at Florida, already has booked a trip to the CWS; he was brilliant (eight shutout innings, 13 strikeouts) in the Gators’ clincher vs. South Carolina on Saturday. … Twice on their just-completed homestand the Mississippi Braves took the field with a chance to reach .500 for the first time since mid-April. Twice they lost. Biloxi, which got five shutout innings from rehabbing big leaguer Wade Miley, beat the M-Braves 5-4 Sunday at Trustmark Park, dropping the home team to 27-29. The M-Braves started the season 3-2 but then went on an eight-game skid and have been fighting their way back ever since. … Mississippi native — and former M-Braves radio voice — Ben Ingram will do the TV play-by-play on Bally Sports South for Atlanta’s three-game series at Detroit. Ingram is moving over from the radio booth for this short road trip. … Congrats to Crystal Springs native Hunter Renfroe, who became a first-time father last week. The veteran outfielder out of Mississippi State returned to the Los Angeles Angels’ lineup on Saturday. … Tim Anderson, the East Central Community College product, got a (needed?) day off Sunday as the Chicago White Sox lost to Miami 6-5. Anderson went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts and made a critical ninth-inning error that led to three unearned runs in the White Sox’s 5-1 loss to the Marlins on Saturday. Anderson, a 2022 All-Star, is hitting .263 with no home runs and has five errors in 46 games at shortstop with a minus-4 Defensive Runs Saved stat (per FanGraphs). BTW, former MSU star Kendall Graveman blew the save for the White Sox in Sunday’s loss; they are reeling again at 29-38. … MSU alum Brent Rooker hit his 13th homer for Oakland on Sunday as the woeful A’s (17-50) completed a three-game sweep at Milwaukee. After a prolonged cold spell, Rooker has six hits (two homers) in his last 19 at-bats.

10 Jun

sudden impact

On this date in 2002, Marcus Thames, a New York Yankees rookie, stepped to the plate in Yankee Stadium for his first big league at-bat and, on the first pitch he saw, blasted a home run off Randy Johnson, then pitching for Arizona. It was the first of 115 homers for Thames, a Louisville native and ex-East Central Community College star who had a nice MLB career. It’s a cool memory, for sure, but Thames no doubt has other things on his mind today, namely the five-game win streak by the Los Angeles Angels that has pushed their record to 35-30, within 6.5 games of first place in the American League West. Thames is in his first year as the Angels’ hitting coach, and he has had a positive impact. The Angels’ offense was a mess in 2022, despite the presence of Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani. They went 73-89 and finished 26th in the majors in on-base percentage, 25th in runs and first (as in worst) in strikeouts. Under Thames’ direction, their OBP (.333) as well as batting average (.256) are up, and they are averaging more runs per game (4.8) and fewer strikeouts (8.7). Thames, widely regarded as a good coach, was the victim of staff purges by the Yankees and Miami the last two years. He quickly found work with Phil Nevin’s Angels and promised an “aggressive in the zone” approach. It appears to be working, much like it did for him on that memorable first AB 21 years ago. … Things are not going so well for Buck Showalter’s New York Mets, who have lost seven in a row and tumbled to 30-34, 9.5 games out in the National League East. They’ve also lost slugger Pete Alonso to the injured list. Showalter, the ex-Mississippi State star in his second season as manager of the Mets, is already rumored to be on the hot seat despite winning manager of the year honors with a playoff team in 2022. He said he remained proud of his current club after they blew late leads and lost three times to the archenemy Atlanta Braves. They then lost to the low-budget Pittsburgh Pirates 14-7 on Friday. (Ke’Bryan Hayes — son of Hattiesburg native Charlie — went 5-for-5 with four RBIs for the Bucs, who are 33-29.) The Mets have the largest payroll in baseball; owner Steve Cohen can’t be happy with what has happened this season.

29 May

top of the heap

The ride has been anything but smooth for Milwaukee, but the Brewers have reached Memorial Day — a traditional benchmark — in first place in the National League Central. They beat San Francisco 7-5 on Sunday to snap a three-game skid and move to 28-25, 1.5 games up on Pittsburgh in a weak division. Devin Williams and William Contreras — two of several Mississippi connections on the Milwaukee roster — were key figures in Sunday’s win. The remarkable Williams, a former Biloxi Shuckers star, got the last four outs for the save; he is 8-for-8 with an 0.54 ERA. Catcher Contreras, a former Mississippi Braves standout and a 2022 All-Star for Atlanta before being traded, contributed a two-run homer and an RBI single; he is batting .250 with five bombs and 16 RBIs. The Brewers have nine players from their opening day roster on the injured list, including ace Brandon Woodruff, the Mississippi State product, and promising rookie Garrett Mitchell, a Shuckers alum. The team has wobbled through a 10-15 May but still sits atop the division. “We keep grinding through it,” Williams told mlb.com. (Ex-State star Ethan Small was sent back to Triple-A after a rocky outing in his 2023 debut.) … For the record, there is a Mississippi thread running through all of the six teams currently in first place in the big leagues. In Tampa Bay, there is former M-Braves catcher Christian Bethancourt, a highly rated prospect when he passed through Pearl a decade ago. He has taken a winding path to Tampa. In Minnesota, ex-Southern Miss star Matt Wallner was recently recalled from the minors and might be sticking around, having gone 7-for-11 with a homer, four RBIs and two walks in his last four games. In Texas, MSU product Nathaniel Lowe continues to rake for the power-packed Rangers: .273, five homers, 29 RBIs. In Los Angeles (Chavez Ravine branch), there is a trio of former M-Braves: the irrepressible Freddie Freeman, Jason Heyward and Evan Phillips (an unsung bullpen piece who has seven saves and a 1.77 ERA). And in Atlanta, the bulk of the club is M-Braves alums: Ronald Acuna, Ozzie Albies, Max Fried, Michael Harris II, Charlie Morton, Austin Riley, Spencer Strider, et al. And Orlando Arcia was on the first Biloxi club back in 2015. DeSoto Central High grad Riley hit his 10th homer in Sunday’s win against Philadelphia and is batting .357 over his last seven games. P.S. Shout-out to Scott Berry and Southern Miss, which won the Sun Belt Conference Tournament championship on Sunday, getting big homers from Dustin Dickerson, Danny Lynch and Slade Wilks and lockdown relief work from Justin Storm. Denied an NCAA regional host bid despite their 41-17 record (and 19-2 finishing kick), the Golden Eagles await the announcement today of their regional destination. Baton Rouge? Tuscaloosa? Fayetteville? … East Central Community College was eliminated from the NJCAA Division II World Series after an 11-10 loss to Frederick (Md.) CC in Enid, Okla. The Warriors won both the MACCC title and the Region 23 crown en route to the World Series.

28 May

worth noting

With a sixth-inning double Saturday at Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City, Corey Dickerson reached a pretty cool milestone: 1,000 career hits. McComb native Dickerson, 34, got his first big league hit in 2013 with Colorado, which drafted the lefty-hitting outfielder out of Meridian Community College in 2010. Now with Washington, Dickerson has played for eight different clubs over his career and has been an All-Star and a Gold Glove winner. He has 136 career homers and 460 RBIs. The career hits leader among Mississippi natives is Dave Parker with 2,712. Three others (Buddy Myer, Ellis Burks and Frank White) reached the 2,000-hit level. … Former Southern Miss star Matt Wallner now has 18 career hits after a 4-for-4 effort for Minnesota on Saturday. Wallner, who has played in just 28 games over his young MLB career, hit his first homer of 2023 in the win against Toronto; he hit two last season. … USM will play for the Sun Belt Conference Tournament title Sunday in Montgomery, Ala., after beating Appalachian State 11-1 in an elimination game on Saturday. USM lost an earlier game to the Mountaineers. In the win, Will Armistead threw a seven-inning four-hitter and Matthew Etzel and Reece Ewing banged out three hits apiece in a 15-hit attack. … East Central Community College got run-ruled 12-2 by Southeastern Iowa on Saturday in the NJCAA Division II World Series and plays an elimination game Sunday vs. Frederick (Md.) CC in Enid, Okla. … William Carey University won its opener Friday against Bellevue (Neb.) and will play again Monday in the NAIA World Series in Lewiston, Idaho. R.J. Stinson hit an RBI double and scored on a Jake Lycette sac fly to give the Crusaders a 6-4 lead in the bottom of the eighth. Preston Ratliff pitched the ninth to nail down the win, Carey’s 48th of the season.

23 May

the path ahead

East Central Community College, champion of possibly the toughest region in the country, was given the No. 3 seed in the upcoming NJCAA Division II World Series and will open tournament play on Saturday against 6-seed Southeastern (Iowa) in Enid, Okla. This is the first trip to the juco World Series for the Warriors (37-18), who would love to follow Pearl River’s lead and come home with the national championship. The Wildcats won it all in 2022. ECCC coach Neal Holliman was named the MACCC coach of the year, and two of his players, Eli Collins and Mo Little, made first-team all-conference. Itawamba’s Will Verdung, who hit .389 with 15 homers this season, was named the MACCC player of the year, and Meridian’s Cole Boswell (11-0, 2.00 ERA) was named pitcher of the year. Both have signed with Southern Miss. Meridian, which finished second to ECCC in the regular season, had four players named to the MACCC first team, with Dalton McIntyre, Blaise Priester and Gunnar Dennis joining Boswell. Pearl River had three: Logan Walters, Cooper Cooksey and Will Passeau. Hinds had two players selected: Connor Chisolm and Dylan Coleman. Also on the first team were Gulf Coast’s Sean Smith, Northeast’s Khi Holliday and Jones’ Beau Bryans. P.S. Baseball America’s latest projected NCAA Tournament field has USM going to Baton Rouge as a No. 2 seed behind LSU. The Golden Eagles (37-16) will begin their chase for the Sun Belt Conference Tournament title on Wednesday vs. James Madison at Montgomery, Ala.

21 May

not so fast there

Reports of the Chicago White Sox’s demise may have been greatly exaggerated, to borrow a phrase. And Mississippi products have played key roles in the club’s recent revival. The ChiSox won their third straight game Sunday and have won 12 of their last 20. They are just 19-29, fourth in the American League Central, but are only 6 1/2 games back in what’s considered a weak division. Talk of a fire sale that began during a 10-game losing streak has quieted down. Ole Miss product Lance Lynn, who got off to an awful start this season, went six innings to beat Kansas City on Sunday at Guaranteed Rate Field and is 3-1 in May. The veteran right-hander is 3-5 with a 6.28 ERA overall. Mississippi State product Kendall Graveman has not allowed a run this month and has posted three saves in his last eight games. Ocean Springs native Garrett Crochet, who missed the entire 2022 season, has come off the injured list and worked 1 1/3 scoreless innings in two appearances. The young left-hander could be a key bullpen arm, as he was in 2021. Ex-East Central Community College star Tim Anderson, the shortstop and leadoff batter, hasn’t yet found his swing. The former batting champion is batting just .252 without a homer in 29 games; he did a long stint on the IL in late April. He has been the subject of trade rumors, but the team’s turnaround may alter that narrative. (For the record, former Taylorsville High standout Billy Hamilton was briefly with the White Sox earlier this month — to serve primarily as a pinch runner and defensive replacement — but went on the IL on May 10.) P.S. In the rain-delayed grand re-opening of historic Hinchliffe Stadium (see previous post), ex-Columbia High star Ti’Quan Forbes homered for the host New Jersey Jackals in their win Sunday against Sussex County in the independent Frontier League.

21 May

coming attractions

Tournament time arrives this week for the nation’s major colleges, many of which are still battling for NCAA Tournament bids. Southern Miss shouldn’t have to fret about a regional berth, but the Golden Eagles would certainly like to collect a Sun Belt Conference tourney title for outgoing coach Scott Berry. USM (37-16 with 15 wins in its last 16 games) is in its first year in the SBC and enters the tournament in Montgomery, Ala., as the No. 2 seed (behind Coastal Carolina). The Golden Eagles will play Wednesday at Riverwalk Stadium against the winner of Tuesday’s play-in game between James Madison and Old Dominion. … Jackson State (28-23) enters the SWAC Tournament as the 4-seed from the East Division and will play West No. 1 Grambling State on Wednesday at Georgia Tech’s Chandler Stadium in Atlanta. JSU beat Grambling in their only meeting in the Andre Dawson Classic back in March. Mississippi Valley State and Alcorn State did not qualify for the SWAC tourney. … The SEC Tournament starts Tuesday in Hoover, Ala., but Mississippi State and Ole Miss — the last two national champions — won’t be there. (And since there is no NIT in baseball, their seasons are over.) MSU went into the final weekend with a chance to qualify for the SEC field but lost two of three to Texas A&M and came up short. … William Carey will open Friday in the NAIA World Series against Bellevue (Neb.) at Harris Field in Lewiston, Idaho. Carey is the No. 4 seed in the 10-team field. Region 23 champ East Central Community College will get its next assignment on Tuesday when the NJCAA Division II World Series brackets are announced. The Enid, Okla., tournament starts Saturday.

20 May

enid-bound

How do you get to Enid, Okla.? Practice, yes, but there is a little more to it. In East Central Community College’s case, to get to Enid and the NJCAA Division II World Series, you had to win the Region 23 Tournament against a field that included the No. 1 team in the country, the defending national champion and two other ranked teams. The Warriors pulled it off, beating top-ranked LSU-Eunice 8-2 in a winner-take-all game at Eunice on Friday. Under coach Neal Holliman, in his 17th season, the Warriors have won four state titles, including this year’s. This is their first region title and first World Series berth. Eli Collins, a Southern Miss signee, went 2-for-3 with a homer, three RBIs and three runs to power the ECCC offense on Friday. Five pitchers combined on a six-hitter with 13 strikeouts. From unranked in the preseason, the now No. 8 Warriors (37-17) will head to Enid as one of the 10 regional champions. The brackets will be announced Tuesday, and the double-elimination tournament begins May 27 at Allen Memorial Ballpark. Pearl River won the national title in 2022 and Jones College did it in 2016.

19 May

arm robbery

Home runs by Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani were certainly highlight-worthy plays in the Los Angeles Angels’ 6-5 win at Baltimore on Thursday. Not to be overlooked was Hunter Renfroe’s throw in the bottom of the ninth inning. The former Mississippi State standout took a ball that hopped off the right-field wall, whirled and cut down former Bulldogs teammate Adam Frazier at second base for the second out of the inning. Angels manager Phil Nevin called the throw “incredible.” “I’ve seen him make a couple against me, I know that,” Nevin said in a TV interview. “It’s nice to have it on my side once.” Renfroe, in his first season with the Angels, has five assists from right field in 43 games in 2023 and 62 all told in his big league career. (And runners don’t challenge him all that often.) Renfroe is hitting .250 with 10 homers, a total matched by Trout and Ohtani on Thursday. P.S. East Central Community College plays No. 1 LSU-Eunice today for the NJCAA Division II Region 23 championship and a berth in the juco World Series. ECCC beat LSU-E in a winners bracket game Thursday, then lost to the Bengals in a later rematch. LSU-E eliminated defending national champ Pearl River in between. … Kudos to: Southern Miss’ Tanner Hall for notching his 11th win of the season — and USM’s 14th straight — with eight shutout innings against Louisiana-Lafayette; Mississippi State’s Amani Larry for his walk-off home run against Texas A&M; former Mississippi Braves star Freddie Freeman, now with the Dodgers, for his 300th career homer; former Ole Miss standout Doug Nikhazy for his first Double-A win for Cleveland’s Akron club; Jackson Prep product Will Warren for a win in his Triple-A debut for the New York Yankees’ Scranton/Wilkes-Barre team; and Jackson Prep for claiming its sixth straight MAIS 6A state title with a win over Madison-Ridgeland Academy.

15 May

heavyweight class

To win the state championship this season, East Central Community College had to navigate a 28-game gauntlet of nationally ranked teams and longtime rivals. Now the going really gets tough.
Five of the top 14 teams, including Nos. 1, 3 and 4, in the NJCAA Division II poll are gathered in Eunice, La., this week to determine the Region 23 champion in a six-team, double-elimination event that figures to be a tooth-and-nail battle.
The field includes the defending national champion, third-ranked Pearl River Community College, and seven-time national champion LSU-Eunice, the nation’s top-ranked team. Also in the tourney are four other Mississippi schools: No. 4 Meridian, No. 8 East Central, No. 14 Itawamba and Northeast, which just missed a Top 20 ranking. The survivor of the Region 23 Tournament, which starts today, gets a berth in the Division II World Series in Enid, Okla.
“That’s it, that’s the goal,” said East Central coach Neal Holliman, who has won four Mississippi titles but has yet to claim a region crown or juco world series berth in 17 years in Decatur.
The Warriors (33-16), who got a bye into the region field, are rested and as ready as they can be for the challenge ahead, Holliman said.
“To win the regular season championship in our league (the MACCC), that might be tougher than winning a tournament championship,” he said. “The regular season is like a two-month tournament. Playing two double-headers every week, it wears and tears on your guys. We’re very proud to have come through.”
“It’s an incredible accomplishment to say that you’ve survived and made it to the regional,” said Pearl River coach Michael Avalon, whose 2022 team also survived the regional and then won the national title in Enid, just the second by a Mississippi juco.
Holliman had high expectations for this year’s East Central team, which returned the likes of Eli Collins, Leighton Jenkins and Grant Edwards from a 30-win club in 2022.
“We felt like we’d be pretty productive,” the coach said. “You never say, ‘Oh, this team is gonna win a championship,’ even though that’s always the goal. But we felt we had a good group and had a chance to do productive things.”
Things started slowly. On March 7, before conference play began, the Warriors’ record was 8-10.
“That surprised us a little,” Holliman said. “We weren’t playing bad. It wasn’t the Bad News Bears out there, but we weren’t executing in any phase like we were capable of. We have some players with a lot of versatility, and we were trying to find the best formula to have the best team, where everybody fits. Once we got settled into our roles, we took off.”
The Warriors went 23-5 in the league. They swept nine league doubleheaders and split the other five. They had a nine-game win streak and two five-game streaks. They clinched the championship on April 28, the last day of the regular season, by beating East Mississippi in the opener of a twinbill.
They haven’t played a game since. The other Mississippi teams in the region field got there by winning a best-of-3 play-in series. East Central has spent its off time working out and playing intrasquad games. “Our goal for this time was to have the guys prepared and hungry but rested,” Holliman said.
Collins, a Southern Miss signee from Laurel, was a sparkplug for the Warriors, batting .424, driving in 51 runs, scoring 66 and stealing 27 bases. Jenkins, a North Alabama commit from Collinsville, hit .355. Mo Little, a freshman from Brandon, supplied 10 homers and 65 RBIs while batting .350, and Ramie Harrison, from Philadelphia, hit .358.
Edwards, a New Orleans signee, was a whirlwind on the mound, going 4-0 with a 3.38 ERA, three saves and 57 strikeouts in 42 2/3 innings. Luke Cooley, from Waynesboro, went 5-1, and David Burton, from Decatur, posted five saves.
“We’re not a one-dimensional club. To go 23-5, you can’t be one-dimensional,” Holliman said.
There is a bundle of talented players in the regional, and pro and college scouts will be there to watch. LSU-E has its usual array of stars, and the Mississippi contingent will roll out several players who rank among the national leaders in various categories: ICC’s Will Verdung (.402, 16 homers); Meridian’s Dalton McIntyre (.462, 33 steals); Pearl River’s Alex Perry (.377, 62 runs); Northeast’s Khi Holiday (.363, 76 runs); Meridian’s Cole Boswell (11-0, 2.60); Pearl River’s Cooper Cooksey (9-0, 1.26); and Northeast’s Matthew Bullard (9-0).
“It’s six good teams,” Holliman said. “Eunice has a great program. All the Mississippi schools have faced good competition all year. It’ll just depend on who plays best that week and executes in the crucial moments.”
First-round games at Bengal Stadium
Meridian-Pearl River, noon
LSU-Eunice–Northeast, 3:30 p.m.
East Central-Itawamba, 7 p.m.