Tag Archives: Jackson State

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.

04 Mar

numbers to crunch

2,326 – Announced attendance for Wednesday’s South Alabama-Southern Miss game at MGM Park in Biloxi. The Golden Eagles (7-2) were a hospitable host, losing to the Jaguars 4-2, their second straight loss to USA.
.563 – Jack Kruger’s batting average in nine games for Mississippi State. The California juco transfer also leads the 7-2 Bulldogs with 12 runs, 13 RBIs, two homers and a 1.000 slugging percentage.
5 – Hits by Errol Robinson, Ole Miss’ preseason All-America shortstop who is hitting just .217 over seven games. The Rebels, ranked in several polls, are 7-1 despite slow starts by veterans Robinson, Colby Bortles and Will Golsan.
7 – Steals in seven attempts by Jackson State’s Bryce Brown, whose speed nicely complements the power of Jesus Santana (four bombs) in the 5-3 Tigers’ lineup.
0 – Home runs in 10 games by Alcorn State’s Collin Carroll, picked by some as the SWAC’s preseason player of the year. The ex-Southwest Mississippi Community College star from Ridgeland hit 12 homers in 2015.
10.70 – Mississippi Valley State’s staff ERA. The 2-7 Delta Devils (both wins came against Tougaloo) are hitting .233 and have made 30 errors.
11 – Consecutive wins by Delta State against Union, the 9-5 Statesmen’s opponent in this weekend’s Gulf South Conference road series.
9 – Pitchers used, one in each inning, by Millsaps in a 5-2 win against Adrian at Twenty Field on Wednesday. The nine combined for a seven-hitter with eight strikeouts for the 4-6 Majors.
.621 – Timothy Rowe’s batting average for Itawamba Community College. That leads the state and ranks fifth in NJCAA Division II. Jones County JC’s Mason Irby and Pearl River’s Zachary Clark are tied for the state and national lead with six homers each. Irby’s 24 RBIs tops the state and ranks fourth in the country. Jones’ Clint Sasser has an MACJC-best 20 steals, tied for most in the nation.

28 Feb

power plays

Power isn’t everything in baseball. You can win without it. It can be pitched around. But power is something special. It jolts the ballpark. It dents the memory. You remember home runs years later. Billy Beane. Barry Lyons. Randy Milligan. Wesley Walls. Adell Davenport. Ray Montgomery. Fred Cooley. Daryle Ward. Tommy Bost. Jeff Francoeur. Jason Perry. Hunter Renfroe. Evan Gattis. Drug testing, much needed, took some of the wallop from the pro game, making legit power even more valuable. College baseball started turning down the power a few years ago with new bat specs, concerned that too many games were ending with scores like 15-12. Only 0.39 homers were hit per game in college baseball in 2014, the lowest figure ever. In 2015, after some changes to the ball, the home run started to make a comeback. Homers rose 43.5 percent over 2014. Wouldn’t be a surprise to see the number rise again in 2016. Did you notice what Delta State did on Saturday? Seven homers in one game, three by Trent Giambrone. (Unfortunately for the Statesmen, their pitching gave up 17 runs and the game was lost to Lee University.) Southern Miss is also enjoying a power surge to start 2016. The Golden Eagles have hit 14 home runs during their 6-0 start. Taylor Braley has four, Tim Lynch three. Sikes Orvis, who hit 16 homers for Ole Miss last year, is gone to the pros, but Colby Bortles and J.B. Woodman are threats to go deep for the Rebels. Woodman has two in six games to date. At Mississippi State, keep an eye on newcomers Jack Kruger, who has two homers already, and Nathaniel Lowe, who belted 17 bombs in junior college a year ago. Jackson State’s Jesus Santana hit 12 homers in 2015 and has three already in 2016. Alcorn State also has a slugger of note in Collin Carroll. No one really likes a 15-12 game – and those will be rare – but it’s good to see power back as a threat in the college game. Power is something special.

24 Feb

statistically speaking

Southern Miss’ Taylor Braley isn’t going to hit 50 home runs this season, but he is on a good pace with three bombs in three games. He is also batting .444 with six RBIs and five runs. Stats don’t mean a whole lot at this stage of the college campaign, but some jump off the page just the same. Blue Mountain’s Miciah Heard has scored 16 runs in 12 games. Mississippi College’s Logan Ferrell has 16 runs in just 10 games, and he is hitting .459. Mississippi State’s Jack Kruger has nine hits, nine RBIs and eight runs in four games. William Carey’s Adrian Brown has a .471 on-base percentage, eight RBIs, six runs and three steals over 11 games. Delta State’s Ben Pickard has three homers, 12 RBIs and a .409 average in 11 games. Millsaps’ Isaac Glenn is hitting .406 with nine runs and five RBIs in eight games. Ole Miss’ Tate Blackman has rolled sixes in hits, RBIs and runs over three games. Jackson State’s Jesus Santana has two homers, four RBIs and seven runs in four games. P.S. On the subject of numbers, Jones County Junior College’s Mason Irby tallied nine hits, two homers, nine RBIs and four runs in four games last week to earn MACJC player of the week honors. The catcher-turned-outfielder is a USM signee. Jarod Wright, a right-hander at Northwest CC, was named pitcher of the week after throwing six shutout innings with eight strikeouts in a win over Rend Lake (Ill.).

22 Feb

the way it was

There were hot starts (see Ole Miss and Southern Miss, who registered Opening Weekend sweeps). And there were lukewarm starts (Mississippi State went 2-2, with both losses to Florida Atlantic, and Jackson State also split its four games). Alcorn State celebrated the first win of the Brett Richardson era (6-2 vs. Southern University on Sunday) but lost its other two games in the MLB Urban Invitational. On the colder end of the scale, Mississippi Valley State went 0-4 at Nicholls State. Among the small four-year schools, Blue Mountain, now 8-4, swept three games over the weekend from Tougaloo, which fell to 0-14 on the year. William Carey beat NAIA No. 21 Missouri Baptist two of three. Delta State took two of three from West Alabama to start its Gulf South Conference schedule. (Worth noting: Tre Hobbs, a lefty out of Mississippi Delta Community College, threw a six-hit shutout for the Statesmen and is now 3-0 with an 0.47 ERA.) Mississippi College won one of three GSC games against West Florida, and Millsaps went 1-2 in a tournament at Piedmont College. Which brings us to the most inspiring performance of the weekend. That has to go to Belhaven, which bounced back from a 25-0 loss in its season opener last Tuesday to sweep a road series at Louisiana College. Senior slugger Adam Kowalczyk led the way with two homers, five RBIs and six runs in the three games. BU is slated to play at Millsaps on Tuesday in the first game of the Maloney Trophy Series.

04 Feb

choosing nine

Time to take a break from the football recruiting blather and Super Bowl hype. Enough already with the Golden State Warriors. Opening Day Eve for college baseball is upon us. To get in the spirit of the new season, here’s a list of nine Magnolia State players to watch over the coming months:
1. Seth Davis, Blue Mountain, first baseman. No player in the state made a bigger leap forward in 2015 than Davis. A .195 hitter as a sophomore, the 6-foot-5, 225-pounder raked at a .396 clip last season, belting eight homers and driving in 40 runs. He was BMC’s first first-team All-SSAC selection.
2. Adrian Brown, William Carey, outfielder. Brown was a first-team All-NJCAA Region 23 pick for Copiah-Lincoln CC in 2015 after batting .318 with seven homers and 12 steals. If the name sounds familiar, it should. Brown’s father, also named Adrian Brown, played in the big leagues from 1997-2006.
3. Isaac Glenn, Millsaps, outfielder. Glenn, who played in the shadow of Keith Shumaker in 2015, will get a bigger share of the stage now. He led the Majors with a .436 average and 45 RBIs last year and earned first-team All-SAA honors. He’s now getting NCAA Division III preseason All-America notice.
4. Ethan Gill, Delta State, third baseman. Slugging is making a comeback, and the 6-foot-3, 225-pound Gill can accurately be called a slugger. He came in last year as a transfer from Itawamba CC and led the Statesmen in homers (10), RBIs (51) and slugging percentage (.610). He also batted .325.
5. Gavin Collins, Mississippi State, catcher/third baseman. Collins made the SEC All-Freshman team at catcher in 2014 and was a preseason All-SEC pick last year but was set back by a hand injury. He wound up hitting just .228 in 35 games. Expect a bounce-back season.
6. Brady Bramlett, Ole Miss, right-hander. Drafted in the 22nd round by Oakland last summer, Bramlett opted to return to Oxford. That’s a real shot in the arm (pun intended) for the Rebels. After missing the 2014 season with an injury, Bramlett went 7-4 with a 3.74 ERA in 2015.
7. Nick Johnson, Southern Miss, right-hander. The former Ridgeland High star is poised for a bigger role with the Golden Eagles, who lost a lot from a very good 2015 staff. Johnson was 4-0 with a 2.93 ERA in 12 games and 27 2/3 innings. He limited batters to a .198 average.
8. Jesus Santana, Jackson State, third baseman. As a freshman in 2015, the Puerto Rico native led the SWAC in homers with 12 while batting .283 with 48 RBIs. He was All-SWAC last year and is now showing up on some black college preseason All-America charts.
9. Collin Carroll, Alcorn State, first baseman. Carroll won’t sneak up on anyone in 2016. Collegiate Baseball has pegged the senior as the SWAC’s projected player of the year and a third-team All-America. Carroll, a transfer from Southwest Mississippi CC last year, batted .337 with 12 homers and 50 RBIs.

21 Jan

campus notes

Delta State junior Jacob Swiney was named to the Preseason All-Gulf South Conference squad announced on Wednesday. The Biloxi native, also cited as a top player in NCAA Division II by Collegiate Baseball, batted .396 with three home runs and 35 RBIs last season, making All-GSC first team. Junior college transfer pitchers Dalton Moats and Jacob Howell were listed on the GSC’s top newcomer list. The Statesmen were pegged for a third-place finish in the league. … Mississippi College’s Will Elliott and Perry Turner also made the list of top newcomers in the GSC. Elliott, a junior outfielder from Oxford, is a transfer from Alabama. Turner, a junior pitcher, came in from Jones County Junior College. MC, still in transition to D-II, is not yet eligible for the GSC championship. … Millsaps College outfielder Isaac Glenn was an honorable mention pick on the d3baseball.com preseason All-America team. The junior from Madison hit .436 with 17 doubles and 45 RBIs in 2015. He led the Southern Athletic Association last year in slugging and on-base percentage. … Jackson State had three players named to the Black College Nine preseason All-America team. Third baseman Jesus Santana and DH Sam Campbell were named to the first team and outfielder Lamar Briggs to the second team. Santana led the Tigers and the SWAC with 12 home runs in 2015. … Former USM and MLB standout Chad Bradford will be the keynote speaker at the Southern Miss Dugout Club Banquet on Feb. 6. Bradford played at Byram High School and Hinds Community College before signing with USM. He went 5-4 with a 3.59 earned run average and three saves in 1996, his only season with the Golden Eagles. The submarine-style right-hander, featured in “Moneyball,” pitched for 12 years in the majors, posting a 36-28 overall record with a 3.26 ERA. He served as pitching coach at Hinds CC in 2014-15. … Tougaloo, one of three GCAC schools that play baseball, will be eligible to compete for the Association of Independent Institutions Baseball Championship this year. A total of 15 teams will vie for eight spots and a chance to play for one of the three NAIA Tournament bids given to the tournament champion, runner-up and third-place finisher. The Bulldogs went 7-40 in 2015 in the first year of coach Earl Sanders’ second stint with the program. P.S. Former Mississippi Braves third baseman Wes Timmons is the new coach at Shorter University, which plays in the Gulf South Conference.

04 Nov

odds and ends

JaCoby Jones, the former Mr. Baseball from Richton, heads a group of Mississippi-connected players named to the Arizona Fall League’s Fall Stars Game. Jones, a shortstop in Detroit’s system currently batting .304 with two homers for Scottsdale, is on the East roster. The West includes 2015 Mississippi Braves starter Lucas Sims and two Biloxi Shuckers alums, outfielder Michael Reed and closer Damien Magnifico. Magnifico had a magnificent run with Milwaukee’s Double-A team last summer, moving into the bullpen and going 4-1 with 20 saves and a 1.17 ERA in 42 appearances. The Fall Stars Game is set for Saturday at 7 p.m. CST and will be televised by MLB Network. … Connor Lien, expected to contend for an outfield spot with the M-Braves next spring, is scuffling in the AFL. He is hitting .171 with a homer, 18 strikeouts and two walks in 41 at-bats for Peoria. Still, Baseball America’s Bill Ballew calls Lien “one of my top sleepers in the organization.” … Jackson native and Ole Miss alumnus Cody Satterwhite, a veteran minor league pitcher, is on the U.S. roster for the first Premier 12 international tournament set for Nov. 8-21. Pool play is in Taiwan and Japan with the semifinals and finals in Tokyo. According to Baseball America, Premier 12 is the top senior event for the International Baseball Federation, now re-branded as the World Baseball Softball Confederation. Satterwhite, currently a New York Mets farmhand, is joined on the American squad by former M-Braves star Tyler Pastornicky and Biloxi Shuckers alum Brett Phillips. … Tampa Bay released former Jackson State catcher Jovany Felipe, who batted .182 in rookie ball this summer after signing as an undrafted free agent. … The Belhaven-William Carey rivalry apparently is no more. With the Blazers moving to NCAA Division III, their 2016 schedule does not include the NAIA Crusaders, their longtime rivals in the Gulf Coast Athletic Conference and Southern States Athletic Conference. BU will play Maloney Trophy rivals Millsaps and Mississippi College next season. Carey is playing NCAA D-II’s Delta State and MC in 2016, as well as NAIA Tougaloo.

30 Oct

a memorable moment

Back in 1986, the New York Mets faced a situation similar to the one they face today: Down 0-2 entering Game 3 of the World Series. But while the current club gets Game 3 against Kansas City at its own Citi Field, the ’86 Mets were on the road, at Fenway Park. And one could argue that their comeback in the series was fueled by the outcome of the very first at-bat on Oct. 21, 1986. Lenny Dykstra, the former Jackson Mets star, belted a home run against Boston’s Oil Can Boyd, the Meridian native and Jackson State alum. The Mets would score three more times in the first inning en route to a 7-1 victory. Boyd, in the only World Series appearance of his career, battled for six more innings but wound up with an ugly line: nine hits, a walk, six runs, all earned. (Boyd would be passed over for a possible Game 7 start when a rain delay enabled the Red Sox to roll out Bruce Hurst again. Hurst pitched OK, but the Sox bullpen faltered in the 8-5 loss.) Dykstra went 4-for-5 in Game 3 and scored twice. For all of his faults – and the list seems to keep growing – “Nails” was a money player. He batted .321 in 32 postseason games (with the Mets and Philadelphia), with 10 homers, 19 RBIs and 27 runs.

20 Oct

the other matchup

Forget Young-Dickey and Hendricks-deGrom for a moment. How about Clemens-Boyd? There is a fairly compelling pitching matchup tonight in Tempe, Ariz., when 354-game winner Roger Clemens goes against fellow former Boston Red Sox star Oil Can Boyd in Men’s Senior Baseball League action. Meridian native and ex-Jackson State star Boyd, 56, pitches for the Boston Wolf Pack, Clemens, 53, for the Houston Old Stars. Boyd went 78-77 in 10 big league seasons (1982-91) and pitched for many more years in independent ball. Clemens last pitched in the majors in 2007 but threw in indy ball just a couple years ago. Regardless of what kind of stuff either has left, it should be a good show. P.S. Cody Satterwhite, the former Hillcrest Christian and Ole Miss standout, is currently pitching in the Mexican Pacific League. Satterwhite, in his eighth pro season, posted a 4.38 ERA, two wins and two saves for Triple-A Las Vegas in the New York Mets’ system. The big right-hander is still chasing the big league dream.