Tag Archives: high school baseball

20 Apr

random numbers of note

9 — Wins for Buck Showalter’s New York Mets, most in the majors. The former Mississippi State player and new Mets manager saw his club sweep a twinbill from San Francisco on Tuesday to improve to 9-3.
5 — Innings played in right field by former Mississippi Braves star Ronald Acuna on a rehab assignment in the Atlanta system. Acuna doubled in three at-bats for Triple-A Gwinnett and appears on track for an early May return to the Braves’ lineup.
129 — Career MLB home runs for Hunter Renfroe, the ex-State standout who hit his first as a member of the Milwaukee Brewers on Tuesday.
4 — Homers, in 36 at-bats, for MSU product Jordan Westburg at Double-A Bowie in the Baltimore organization. The 30th overall pick in the 2020 draft is batting .306.
10 — Active hitting streak for the M-Braves’ Michael Harris II, Atlanta’s top prospect who is batting .366 with nine RBIs and three steals in 10 games in his first Double-A campaign.
10 — Consecutive wins by Southern Miss, which beat Tulane 11-5 Tuesday to move to 28-8 on the season. The Golden Eagles are ranked in the top 10 in most of the polls.
6 and 7 — Where Mississippi State and Ole Miss sit in the SEC West standings heading into their series this week in Oxford. Both the Bulldogs (6-9, 22-16) and Rebels (5-10, 21-15) began the season as consensus Top 25 teams.
.308 — Batting average for Alcorn State’s Diego Lopez-Molina, a sophomore from Puerto Rico who leads the lowly Braves (2-23) in hits and RBIs and ranks second in runs, homers, OBP and slugging.
12 — Homers for Jake Barlow, who has helped nationally ranked Delta State climb to 25-11, 16-5 (and first) in the Gulf South Conference. He hit 19 bombs last year and 11 in 2019.
4 — Consecutive wins for William Carey University, which beat West Alabama 12-7 Tuesday behind Chris Williams’ three-hit, three-RBI, three-run effort and ran its record to 27-15. The Crusaders, 13-8 in the SSAC, host Tougaloo this weekend in a non-conference series.
42 — Runs scored by Chris Hart, who also has six homers, 23 RBIs and a .311 batting average for Millsaps, 18-18, 8-10 Southern Athletic Association with one conference series remaining — at home vs. Sewanee this weekend.
5 — Wins in six decisions for Brett Sanchez, who has helped Belhaven to a 20-12 mark, 16-9 in the American Southwest Conference. Sanchez, who has a 2.31 ERA in his eight starts, went 9-2 in 2021 for a 20-win team.
16-4 — Pearl River Community College’s MACCC record, which leads the league standings by 2 games over Hinds and East Mississippi. The Wildcats (28-8) are currently ranked No. 2 in the NJCAA Division II poll.
4 — Undefeated Sumrall High School’s spot in the latest MaxPreps Top 25. Northwest Rankin is No. 25. Sumrall is 25-0, NWR 25-2 after both posted wins on Tuesday.

01 Jul

affirmation

Baseball means a lot in Mississippi. If you live here, you know that already. After what transpired in Omaha this week, it should be apparent to any- and everyone who follows the game. Mississippi State’s national championship is a source of pride for the state, regardless of whether you’re a Bulldogs fan. Having made 12 trips to the College World Series, four in the last nine years, State is firmly established as one of the nation’s best programs. The first national title is merely an affirmation that outsiders will notice. Hats off to Chris Lemonis and crew for getting it done. Ron Polk transformed the MSU program into a beast, and other state schools have followed that wave. Ole Miss, Southern Miss, Jackson State, Delta State and William Carey have been consistent winners led by a succession of great coaches — Bianco, Denson, Berry, Braddy, Johnson, Ferriss, Kinnison, Halford, to name a few. DSU (2004) and Carey (1969) have won national titles. Millsaps, Belhaven, Mississippi College and even the fledgling programs at Blue Mountain and MUW have had shining moments in recent seasons. The state’s junior college league ranks with the best in the nation and produced a national champ (Jones College) in 2013. Kids in Mississippi high schools yearn to play on the state’s grand stages, Dudy Noble Field, Taylor Park, Ferriss Field, Dub Herring Park, et al. Youth league opportunities and training facilities seemingly abound, including the new Hank Aaron Sports Academy at Smith-Wills Stadium. Mississippi produces, per capita, more major league players than practically every other state. A Baseball America survey in 2018 put Mississippi fourth behind only Florida, California and Georgia in the relative number of pros produced from 2011-17. This season, 29 Mississippians (natives, prep or college alums) have appeared on a major league roster. Eleven of those are MSU products. The Bulldogs’ national title should compel folks outside the state to notice. Yes, baseball means a lot here.

27 May

just stuff

Oak Grove visits Northwest Rankin tonight to decide the MHSAA Class 6A South State title and berth in next week’s finals against Madison Central. All of the other state championship pairings are set for the big event that starts Tuesday at Trustmark Park in Pearl. In 5A, it’s Saltillo-Pascagoula, 4A West Lauderdale-Sumrall, 3A Booneville-Magee, 2A East Union-Taylorsville and 1A Tupelo Christian-Resurrection Catholic (Pascagoula). Madison Central is top-ranked in the state by MaxPreps and is No. 6 in the country. NWR is fifth in the state, Oak Grove 12th. Sumrall is No. 4, and Booneville is eight. … Southern Miss beat Western Kentucky in its C-USA Tournament opener, finishing off the 11-1 win at 2:59 a.m. today in Ruston, La. The Golden Eagles play again tonight, throwing C-USA pitcher of the year Walker Powell at Lousiana Tech. Ole Miss and Mississippi State both lost in SEC tourney play on Wednesday and face elimination games today in Hoover, Ala. Delta State starts play in the NCAA Division II South Region today vs. Tampa at Pensacola, Fla. … Braden Shewmake, the Mississippi Braves shortstop and Atlanta’s No. 4 prospect, is in the throes of a woeful slump. After an 0-for-4 on Wednesday against Montgomery at the TeePee, Shewmake is batting .086. He has five hits, one homer. He hit .300 over two levels in 2019. … Jacob Robson, the former Mississippi State standout, is hitting the pause button on his torrid start in the minors this season. But for good reason. Robson, a native of London, Ont., is off to play for Team Canada in the Olympics qualifying event in Florida next week. Robson, 26, a lefty-hitting outfielder, is batting .424 with two homers and 10 RBIs for Double-A Erie in Detroit’s system. He played in Triple-A in 2019, hitting .267, and has a .295 career average. He was an eighth-round pick out of Starkville in 2016. He’s not on the Tigers’ top 30 prospect list but has been in their big league spring camp the last couple of years. … Magnolia State products Hunter Renfroe and Austin Riley played a little tit-for-tat in Wednesday’s MLB game between Boston and Atlanta. Renfroe, from Crystal Springs, hit a 377-foot homer for the Red Sox in the second inning. Riley, from Southaven, retaliated with a 390-foot shot, also over Fenway Park’s Green Monster, three innings later. Boston ultimately won the game. … MLB placed Los Angeles Angels pitching coach Mickey Callaway, a former Ole Miss pitcher, on the ineligible list through 2022, the culmination of investigation into numerous sexual harassment allegations. The Angels promptly fired Callaway, who hadn’t been with the team at all this season. … Ex-Ole Miss star Drew Pomeranz, now with San Diego, reportedly has suffered a setback in his recovery from a left shoulder impingement and could be out an extended time. He has been on the IL since May 13.

11 May

who’s it gonna be?

When you’ve got three NCAA Division I programs ranked in the Top 25 and a fourth with an unbeaten conference season, an NAIA program with a conference title under its belt and a D-II team currently battling for a league crown, you’re going to have a bunch of players with great numbers. Only one can win the Ferriss Trophy, given annually to the state’s best. The finalists have been named: Tanner Allen and Landon Sims from Mississippi State and Kevin Graham, Gunnar Hoglund and Doug Nikhazy of Ole Miss. Outfielder Allen is having a monster year for a top five team: .379, eight homers, 46 RBIs, 50 runs. Sims, the Bulldogs’ closer, is 3-0 with six saves and a 0.56 ERA in 14 appearances. Outfielder/first baseman Graham is batting .339 with 10 homers, 41 RBIs, 44 runs for UM, and pitchers Hoglund (4-2, 2.87, 96 punchouts) and Nikhazy (6-2, 2.47), both highly rated MLB draft prospects, have been outstanding, though Hoglund is now shelved with an arm injury. Consider for a moment the players who didn’t make the final five: Bulldogs pitcher Will Bednar has eye-catching stats: 5-1, 3.31 ERA, 80 strikeouts in 49 innings. And he’s a highly rated draft prospect, too. Rebels reliever Taylor Broadway has nine saves, four wins and a 2.73 ERA in 19 games. Reed Trimble has been Southern Miss’ most productive hitter — .306, 10 homers, 45 RBIs, 43 runs – while Walker Powell (8-2) and Ben Ethridge (6-1) have sparkled on the mound. Jackson State (24-0 in the SWAC), which has never had a Ferriss winner, rolls out Ty Hill (.431), Chenar Brown (.357, eight homers, 45 RBIs), Nik Galatas (9-2) and Anthony Becerra (8-1). Then there’s the small schools. NAIA William Carey, SSAC champion, features two-way star Sloan Dieter (.331, 15 homers, 52 RBIs and an 8-2, 1.89 pitching ledger). And at D-II Delta State, Jake Barlow is hitting .314 with 17 homers, most in the state, and 58 RBIs. The winner will be named on May 24. Only one can win. It’s a tough call. P.S. A future Ferriss winner or two might be playing in this week’s MAIS Class 5A championship series, which will be loaded with NCAA Division I talent. The pitching staffs alone feature Riley Maddox (Ole Miss signee), Mason Nichols (Ole Miss) and Will Gibbs (Mississippi State) of Jackson Prep and Bryce Chance (Mississippi State), Niko Mazza (Southern Miss) and Brayden Jones (Ole Miss) of MRA. Prep (33-3) is No. 2 in MaxPreps’ state rankings, MRA (27-9) No. 7.

06 May

head on a swivel

So many proverbial big games to track this weekend. The regular season rolls toward a climax for the NCAA Division I programs. Mississippi State is at South Carolina and Ole Miss at Texas A&M in the SEC, Southern Miss hosts Middle Tennessee State in C-USA and Jackson State (shooting for an unbeaten SWAC season) hosts Mississippi Valley State (shooting for its first win). (Note: Valley, 0-17, hasn’t played since April 18, when the Delta Devils blew a three-run lead in the bottom of the ninth and lost 8-7 to Alabama A&M.) The small colleges are in postseason play. Today, in the NAIA SSAC Tournament at Mobile, Ala., fifth-seeded William Carey (30-10) plays 4-seed Mobile and 7-seed Blue Mountain (14-18) gets 2-seed Faulkner in the first round. In NCAA Division III, Belhaven (20-16) meets East Texas Baptist today in the first round of the ASC Tournament at Marshall, Texas. Division II Delta State (24-15) opens play Friday in the GSC Tournament in Oxford, Ala. The fifth-seeded Statesmen, who have won 15 GSC tourney titles, meet 4-seed Valdosta State in the opening round. And the state junior college playoffs begin Friday with the best-of-3 series that will send four teams to the NJCAA Region 23 Tournament next week. Third-ranked Pearl River Community College has clinched its regional berth and will host the tourney. The high school playoffs are under way, with the series opener of several MHSAA Class 6A heavyweight bouts set for tonight: MaxPreps No. 2-ranked Madison Central is at South Panola; No. 9 Tupelo hosts No. 12 Oxford; No. 4 Germantown visits No. 14 DeSoto Central; and No. 7 Lewisburg visits Starkville. In MAIS 5A, MaxPreps No. 1 Jackson Prep, up 1-0 in the series, plays Jackson Academy on Friday.

07 Apr

have a day

Mississippi State product Nate Lowe hit two home runs and picked up four RBIs as Texas whipped Toronto 7-4 Tuesday night in the big leagues. Lowe is hitting .381 with three homers and 14 RBIs for his new club.
Itawamba Community College’s Lane Domino banged out seven hits, including three homers, to pace the 11th-ranked Indians’ sweep of a doubleheader against Coahoma in Fulton.
Northwest Rankin High’s Ryan Herbison hit two homers, including a grand slam, as the Cougars beat region rival Brandon 16-10 in Class 6A.
William Carey University’s Sloan Dieter homered, drove in six runs and scored four to spark the Crusaders to a twinbill sweep of Southeastern Baptist in Hattiesburg.
Pearl River CC’s Landon Gartman threw a seven-inning complete game, allowing three hits, no walks and fanning 12, to help the No. 2 Wildcats beat No. 7 Meridian 4-1 and earn a split of their MACCC doubleheader in Poplarville.
Nine MSU pitchers threw one inning each and struck out a combined 17 batters as the Bulldogs beat Southern University 15-1 in Starkville. Mikey Tepper and Eric Cerantola each K’d the side.

25 Mar

survey says …

If sports polls are a show of respect, then Mississippi baseball is getting plenty of it. Mississippi State is ranked No. 2 and Ole Miss No. 4 in Baseball America’s NCAA Division I poll, and both schools are in the top 10 in just about every other D-I ranking. Jackson State, off to a 6-0 start in SWAC play, is ranked No. 1 in the Black College Nines HBCU Top 10. Pearl River Community College is No. 2 in the NJCAA’s Division II poll, and three other state jucos are also ranked, including East Central (which is No. 16 despite leading the MACCC standings with a 13-3 record). William Carey is No. 14 in the current NAIA poll and shouldn’t lose much ground after going 1-2 at No. 6 Faulkner last weekend, dropping the rubber game 6-5 in 10 innings. Belhaven, 13-5 and 8-1 in the American Southwest Conference, got votes in this week’s d3baseball.com Top 25 poll. (Note: There are 389 D-III baseball schools vying for attention.) And then there’s the high school ranks, where Madison Central has risen to No. 4 in the MaxPreps Top 25. The Jaguars, led by Stanford signee Braden Montgomery and State signee Hunter Hines, are 14-0 and have won by such scores as 20-2, 21-5, 16-0, 15-1, 15-3 and 13-1.

19 Sep

double dip

Demarcus Evans and Garrett Crochet made their major league debuts on Friday night, but the two former Mississippi prep standouts took very different paths to The Show. Their results were a little different, too. Evans, a 25th-round draft pick out of Petal High by Texas in 2015, spent five years honing his craft in the minors; he posted a 0.90 ERA in 2019. First batter he faced on Friday: Albert Pujols. The Los Angeles Angels’ future Hall of Famer sent Evans’ second pitch — a 93-mph fastball — over the wall in Anaheim for his 662nd career home run. Evans plunked the next batter, Justin Upton, but the the 6-foot-5, 265-pound right-hander got out of his only inning with no further damage. Crochet, an Ocean Springs High alum who pitched at Tennessee the last three years, was drafted 11th overall in June by the Chicago White Sox. The 6-foot-6, 220-pound lefty became the first player since Brandon Finnegan with Kansas City in 2014 to make his MLB debut in the same year he was drafted. For Crochet, who has been working out in the White Sox’s alternate camp, this was his first professional game. First batter he faced: Brian Goodwin of Cincinnati. Crochet struck him out, then struck out the next batter and retired the third on a grounder to first base. He threw six of his 13 pitches at 100 mph or more, including two clocked at 101-plus, in his lone inning. “I felt like I was on top of the world and just truly living the dream,” he told mlb.com. It was surely a dream come true for Evans, as well, and he’ll have better days. Crochet has set his bar pretty high. It’s gonna be fun to see what they do next.

16 Sep

watch for it

The long wait for the call to the big leagues came on Tuesday. Now Demarcus Evans waits, anxiously no doubt, for the call to the Texas bullpen that will signal his MLB debut. There’s a fair chance it’ll come tonight when the Rangers play the Houston Astros at Minute Maid Park. Former Petal High star Evans, a 25th-round pick by the Rangers in 2015, is a 6-foot-5, 265-pound right-hander with tantalizing stuff: an exploding fastball and sharp-breaking curve. “He’s going to come at you with a pretty good fastball—probably one of the best fastballs I’ve seen,” Rangers manager Chris Woodward said in a Sports Illustrated story. Evans reportedly has been throwing well in the alternate camp. He had an exceptional 2019 season, split between high-A and Double-A. In 60 innings, he struck out 100 batters (with 39 walks) and posted a 0.90 ERA. Baseball America named Evans the closer on its all-classification minor league All-Star team. Having switched from starter to reliever during the 2017 season, he has averaged almost 14 strikeouts per nine innings over his pro career. … Considering the offensive struggles Cleveland has been experiencing, it’s a wonder the Indians haven’t given Bobby Bradley a call. The former Harrison Central High standout, who is in their alternate camp in Eastlake, Ohio, could add some thunder to a club that ranks near the bottom of the majors in runs and home runs. The lefty-hitting first baseman/DH has 147 homers over six minor league campaigns and has hit 27 or more in a season four times. He hit 33 at Triple-A Columbus last year, plus another during his brief big league stint. Scouting reports say the 24-year-old Bradley has power to all fields. Sports Illustrated noted earlier this year that the Indians “need to know if they have an MLB-ready first baseman waiting in the wings” to replace Carlos Santana next year. What better time to get a clue. The Indians have lost seven in a row and entered play today in third place, 6 games out, in the American League Central, clinging to the second wild card.

09 Aug

one fine day

As we watch for the next Mississippian to break through in the big leagues, it’s worth noting that a great debut really isn’t much of a predictor about a player’s career. Some superstars had forgettable first games, and plenty of short-term journeymen started off with a bang. Take the case of Meredith “Mo” Sanford, the former Starkville High star who had an MLB debut that made jaws drop back in 1991. Sanford was a 6-foot-6, 220-pound right-hander whose potential in high school was intriguing enough that a Rolling Stone writer, looking for the “next big thing,” visited Starkville and did a feature for the magazine in the spring of 1984. “I’m not telling you this kid can throw a baseball through a car wash without getting it wet,” a scout told the Rolling Stone writer. “He’s still kind of raw. He’s big and he throws hard and he just turned seventeen and he’s going to get better and who the hell really knows?” Sanford threw hard enough to get drafted in the third round in ’84 by the New York Yankees. He opted instead for a scholarship to Alabama, where he labored rather unspectacularly for four years. He was drafted as a senior in 1988 by Cincinnati in Round 32. Under the tutelage of pro instructors, Sanford pitched well in the minors, advanced quickly and on Aug. 9, 1991, got the call to the majors. He started against San Diego, and in the bottom of the first inning he struck out, in succession, Bip Roberts, Tony Fernandez and Tony Gwynn. He wound up going seven innings, allowing two hits and a lone, unearned run in the Reds’ 5-1 victory. He punched out eight, walked one. Unfortunately, Sanford never quite bottled that lightning again, finishing 2-4 with a 4.81 ERA in 27 games spread over three seasons with three different clubs. His last MLB appearance came with Minnesota in 1995, a forgettable outing (three runs in 2/3 of an inning) against Milwaukee. He pitched in various pro leagues for five more years, chasing the magic of Aug. 9, 1991.