Tag Archives: Hunter Hines

16 May

full throttle

Pearl River Community College still needs one more win to advance to the NJCAA Division II World Series, but there doesn’t appear to be any stopping this train. The Wildcats, ranked No. 2 in the nation, barreled through No. 5 East Central CC 22-1 on Thursday in Poplarville, scoring 17 runs in the third inning of the five-inning contest. “The focus we have right now is special,” coach Michael Avalon said in a school release. PRCC is 49-7 and has won 15 of its last 16. The Wildcats are 4-0 in this postseason, having outscored their opponents 53-6. Jaxon Milam drove in six runs Thursday. Chap Cook hit a pinch-hit grand slam in the 17-run inning, and Nico Williams also went yard in that frame. Ace K.K. Clark (10-2) called it a day after three. Game 2 of the best-of-3 Region 23 title series is tonight at Dub Herring Park. “We have to show up and be ready to play. East Central is going to bounce back,” Avalon said. The winner of the series gets the automatic berth in the juco World Series at Enid, Okla. East Central (41-13) made that trip the last two seasons. PRCC last went in 2022, when the Wildcats won the national title. P.S. Eight was a magic number on Thursday night for the state’s Big 4 NCAA Division I schools. Mississippi State hit eight homers — a school record — in a 25-7 rout of hapless Missouri at Columbia, Mo. Hunter Elliott struck out eight batters for his eighth win as Ole Miss upset Auburn 9-2 in Oxford. In another matchup of nationally ranked teams, Joey Urban’s eighth-inning homer provided the winning run for Southern Miss in a 4-3 victory at Troy (Ala.). And Jordan McCladdie’s two-run knock in the eighth inning propelled Jackson State to an 8-7 win over visiting Southern University. Worth noting: Three MSU players hit two homers each Thursday, including Hunter Hines, who tied Rafael Palmeiro’s career homer mark with 67. Hines, a senior out of Madison Central High, now has 13 homers on the year. … In the NCAA Division II South Region Tournament at Tampa, Fla., Mississippi College rolled to a 13-9 win over Lynn as Bryce LaRocca and Tyler Jacobsen drove in three runs each. In the other side of that regional, at Lakeland, Fla., slumping Delta State stumbled to a 7-3 loss against West Florida. Gulf South Conference pitcher of the year Drake Fontenot gave up four runs in 3 2/3 innings to take the loss, DSU’s sixth in a row. The Statesmen face elimination today. MC moves into a winners bracket game vs. No. 1-ranked Tampa.

03 Apr

powering up

The chase is real for Hunter Hines, who has powered his way to within six home runs of Mississippi State’s exalted career record. Rafael Palmeiro — a member of MLB’s 500-homer club — hit 67 bombs at State from 1983-85, including a single-season record 29 (shared with Bruce Castoria) in 1984. Hines, a Madison Central High product now in his fourth year in Starkville, hit his 61st homer on Tuesday at Memphis, tying Will Clark for second on the career list. You’re in rare air when you’re being mentioned with the legendary Thunder and Lightning. Hines has seven homers this season. A lefty hitter who goes 6 feet 3, 210 pounds, Hines averaged 18 homers in his first three MSU seasons, and there’s a lot of 2025 left, assuming he stays healthy. His power seems legit; he led the Cape Cod League — a wood bat league — with 13 homers in 41 games in 2023. He was listed on some MLB draft prospect charts last year but didn’t get called. So he returned to Starkville, where he was a freshman All-America pick in 2022, All-SEC in 2023 and is now in hot pursuit of a record that will cement his legacy as one of the Bulldogs’ greats. Of note: Hines’ father, Richey, is the career homer leader at NCAA Division II Mississippi College with 57. The overall state homer record is believed to be 69, set by D-II Delta State’s Dee Haynes (1998-2000). P.S. MSU alum and Tampa Bay rookie Jake Mangum got another hit Wednesday, one of just three allowed by Paul Skeenes in Pittsburgh’s 4-2 victory. Mangum now has eight MLB hits, which puts him 900 behind fellow former Bulldogs hit king and good friend Adam Frazier, who had two knocks for the Pirates and drove in their first run. Of course, Mangum topped Frazier by a wide margin on MSU’s career hits list: 383 to 224. … Garrett Crochet, the ex-Ocean Springs High star who just a got a huge contract extension from Boston, threw a career-high eight innings with eight strikeouts as the Red Sox blanked Baltimore 3-0. Crochet, a converted reliever, said he last threw eight innings in the first game of his freshman year at Tennessee in 2018. … Former MC standout Blaine Crim hit a walk-off three-run homer for Triple-A Round Rock, completing a game in which he also had a triple, a single and a walk. Crim, 27, is in his sixth season in Texas’ system and carries a .296 average with 104 homers.

04 Jul

eye on …

Hunter Hines essentially has taken the Cape Cod League by storm. The Mississippi State star leads the elite college summer league with eight home runs, five more than the next-closest total, and 26 RBIs, 11 more than the next-highest number. Through 20 games for the Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox, the lefty-hitting outfielder, who goes 6 feet 4, 220 pounds, is batting .289 with 14 runs. Facing some of the top college arms in the country, Hines has picked up right where he left off at State. He hit .297 with 22 homers and 61 RBIs, made All-SEC and was a Ferriss Trophy finalist as a sophomore in 2023. As a freshman, he hit .300 with 16 bombs and 52 RBIs. “From his first BP (batting practice) until now, he’s been the best hitter in our program,” State coach Chris Lemonis said at the Ferriss Trophy ceremony. Hines was a highly touted recruit coming out of Madison Central High in 2021, overshadowed a bit by teammate Braden Montgomery, who took Gatorade player of the year honors. Hines comes by his talent naturally, of course. His father, Richey, was a tremendous hitter at Mississippi College, where he still holds school records for career homers and RBIs. P.S. A raw box score doesn’t always tell the story. Hunter Renfroe went 2-for-5 for the Los Angeles Angels on Monday, boosting his average to .248. But the ex-MSU standout most certainly didn’t feel good about his game. The Angels stranded 14 runners in a 10-3 loss to San Diego. Renfroe personally left eight runners on base, twice striking out in early run-scoring situations. As a team, the Angels are batting just .246 with runners in scoring position, one of the worst averages in baseball. … Kudos to Ole Miss product Nick Fortes, whose clutch hit delivered the go-ahead run in the seventh inning of Miami’s 5-4 win against St. Louis. The second-place Marlins managed to stay within 9 games of red-hot Atlanta, which has won nine in a row, in the National League East.