juco baseball Archives - Page 3 of 10 - All Mississippi Baseball

17 May

what’s going on …

In Hattiesburg today, William Carey University is in the championship phase of the NAIA Opening Round tourney, awaiting the winner of the Ave Maria-Houston-Victoria game. Carey already has beaten both of those teams and will advance to the NAIA World Series with another victory, either today or Thursday. … In Eunice, La., today, East Central Community College takes on LSU-Eunice in a winners bracket game and Pearl River meets Itawamba in a losers bracket game of the NJCAA Division II Region 23 Tournament. ECCC, the MACCC champion, has wins over ICC and Meridian in the tournament. LSU-U, ranked No. 1 in the nation, has wins over Northeast and Pearl River. Meridian and Northeast have been eliminated. … In Hattiesburg this weekend, Southern Miss, chasing a Sun Belt Conference title, plays host to Louisiana-Lafayette in a three-game league series to end the regular season. The Golden Eagles will honor retiring coach Scott Berry on Friday. There will be a lot of emotion at Taylor Park. … Jackson State, trying to maintain momentum for the SWAC Tournament, heads to Daytona Beach, Fla., for a league series against Bethune-Cookman. The Tigers are just 12-15 in the SWAC but have won their last four series. … Taps have been played on Ole Miss’ postseason chances, but Mississippi State clings to hope as it hosts Texas A&M to wrap up the regular season. State is 8-19 in the SEC, trailing both Georgia and Missouri by 2 games in the standings. Those three are vying for the last two SEC tourney berths. MSU basically needs to sweep A&M and get some help from LSU (vs. Georgia) and Auburn (vs. Missouri). … The MHSAA playoffs are down to the final 24 with North and South championships to be decided this week. In Class 6A, Northwest Rankin and Gulfport will battle for the South crown and Germantown and Lewisburg for the North. The state championship series in all six classes will be held at Trustmark Park in Pearl from May 30-June 2.

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.

11 May

worth noting

Justin Steele, former George County High standout, ran his record to 6-0 on Wednesday, throwing six strong innings for the Chicago Cubs in a 10-4 win over rival St. Louis at Wrigley Field. “It was a fun game,” he told The Associated Press. Steele, who has a 1.82 ERA, yielded three earned runs, the first time in 15 starts dating to 2022 that the left-hander had allowed more than two. … For the other Chicago team, ex-Ole Miss star Lance Lynn gave up a career-high seven earned runs against Kansas City and saw his record drop to 1-5 and ERA rise to 7.51. The crumbling White Sox also placed Taylorsville native Billy Hamilton on the injured list. The 11-year veteran, now basically a pinch-running specialist, had scored two runs and stolen two bases in three games since his call-up earlier this month. … On a brighter note for White Sox fans, former Ocean Springs High star Garrett Crochet posted back-to-back scoreless outings on Tuesday and Wednesday at Triple-A Charlotte as he works his way back from Tommy John surgery. … In the independent Atlantic League, Gulfport’s Bobby Bradley hit his fourth home run for Charleston. It was just the fifth hit of the young season for the ex-big leaguer, batting .147 for the Dirty Birds. Braxton Lee, the ex-Pearl River Community College and Ole Miss star, lifted his average to .378 with a 2-for-3 game and drove in three runs in a win for Southern Maryland; Jacques Pucheu, an East Mississippi CC alum, made his fourth straight scoreless relief appearance for the Blue Crabs. … Tyler Tolve, an Atlanta catching prospect, went 0-for-4 with a walk and a run in his Double-A debut Wednesday in a win by the Mississippi Braves at Trustmark Park. Tolve hit .261 with 12 homers at High-Class A Rome in 2022. … Former Hattiesburg High standout Joe Gray Jr. went 0-for-4 for Double-A Biloxi at MGM Park and saw his average dip to .038 (1-for-26) in six games since Milwaukee promoted him to the Shuckers. … Jackson Prep product Will Warren, a New York Yankees prospect, leads the Double-A Eastern League in strikeouts with 37. He is 2-0 with a 3.09 ERA in five starts for Somerset. Ex-Ole Miss star Tim Elko (White Sox system) leads the Class A Carolina League in homers with 10, and ex-South Panola High standout Emaarion Boyd (Philadelphia system) tops the Class A Florida State League with 18 stolen bases. Davis Bradshaw (Miami system), a Meridian CC and McLaurin High alum, had three hits Wednesday to raise his average to .378, second in the Class A Midwest League. … The first-round pairings are set for Monday’s NJCAA Divison II Region 23 Tournament at Eunice, La. State champion East Central will play Itawamba; defending national champ Pearl River draws Meridian; and Northeast gets No. 1-ranked LSU-Eunice. The winner of the double-elimination tourney goes to the juco World Series in Enid, Okla.

06 May

join the club

J.P. France, who pitched one season at Mississippi State, is scheduled to start tonight for Houston, which would make the right-hander the first Mississippian (native or school alum) to debut in the big leagues in 2023. France, whose college career began at Tulane, will become the 21st state-connected player to appear in an MLB game this season when he faces Seattle. Drafted in 2018, France made the Astros’ 40-man roster in the off-season and began this year at Triple-A Sugar Land. He is 2-1 with a 2.33 ERA over five appearances (three starts) and 20-17, 3.73, career. … Braden Shewmake joined the looong list of Mississippi Braves alums to advance to the majors when he debuted at shortstop for Atlanta on Friday night, going 0-for-4 in the loss to Baltimore. Shewmake spent parts of the 2019 and ’21 seasons in Pearl. He played five sports in high school in Texas before moving on to Texas A&M; the Braves drafted him in the first round in 2019. He joins a looong list of M-Braves shortstops to play in the majors. That list includes: Vaughn Grissom, Dansby Swanson, Ozzie Albies, Johan Camargo, Luis Hernandez, Yunel Escobar, Diory Hernandez, Brandon Hicks, Brent Lillibridge, Tyler Pastornicky, Andrelton Simmons, Ed Lucas, Daniel Castro and Dylan Moore. … Numbers of note from Friday’s big league games: ex-Ole Miss star Lance Lynn got his first win (in seven starts) of 2023 for the Chicago White Sox; George County High product Justin Steele got his fifth win for the Cubs; and former MSU standout Brent Rooker hit his 10th homer for Oakland. … Happy (sort of) anniversary to MSU product Jack Kruger, who made his lone big league appearance on this date in 2021, his sixth year in pro ball. He entered as a defensive replacement at catcher for the Los Angeles Angels and didn’t get an at-bat. Kruger spent last season in Triple-A with Texas and is now a free agent. P.S. College stuff: William Carey University eliminated Blue Mountain Christian on Friday in the SSAC Tournament; Millsaps bowed out in the SAA Tournament, losing its second game of the day; Delta State lost its opener in the GSC Tournament; and Belhaven, 1-0 in the CCS Tournament, plays its second-round game today. … Meridian Community College, Pearl River, Itawamba and Northeast all won Friday to advance to next week’s NJCAA Division II Region 23 Tournament in Eunice, La.

05 May

winners and losers

Behind the dominant pitching of Brett Sanchez, Belhaven University beat Covenant 2-1 Thursday in the first round of the Collegiate Conference of the South Tournament at LaGrange, Ga. Sanchez (6-2), an NCAA Division III All-American, allowed four hits with eight strikeouts over nine innings. The Blazers, seeded second, play a winners bracket game today. … Top-seeded William Carey, upset by Blue Mountain Christian on Wednesday, bounced back with a 14-1 rout of Middle Georgia on Thursday to stay alive in the Southern States Athletic Conference Tournament in Hattiesburg. Jake Lycette homered and drove in four runs for the Crusaders, Kris Jones notched three RBIs and Andrew Shirah (8-1) threw all seven innings and punched out 11. Carey gets a rematch with Blue Mountain in an elimination game today. BMC was thumped 14-2 Thursday in a winners bracket game against Loyola of New Orleans. … Millsaps was run-ruled 11-1 by Birmingham-Southern, the No. 9 team in NCAA D-III, in the Southern Athletic Association Tournament at Birmingham. The Majors play an elimination game today against Centre. … In the MACCC playoffs, the home team won in each of the openers in the best-of-3 series: Meridian Community College beat East 15-1; Pearl River beat Southwest 23-1; Itawamba beat Hinds 8-4; and Northeast beat Jones 14-8. The four series winners go to the NJCAA Division II Region 23 Tournament at Eunice, La. East Central, the MACCC champion, and LSU-Eunice are already in the field. … Delta State opens play today in the Gulf South Conference Tournament against West Florida, the No. 1 seed, in Oxford, Ala.

22 Mar

rising to top

Pearl River Community College has the higher national ranking and the longer winning streak, but Jones College is keeping pace in the MACCC standings — and owns a win over the No. 2 Wildcats. Jones, ranked 11th in this week’s NJCAA Division II poll, improved to 7-1 in conference and 22-6 overall with a fairly dominant sweep against Copiah-Lincoln on Tuesday. PRCC (26-4) is also 7-1 in the league following a pair of comeback wins against fifth-ranked Meridian (18-8, 4-4). At Ellisville, the Bobcats got a home run from Madison Central High alum Gatlin Sanders and a strong pitching performance from Ovett’s Dalton Tanner to beat Co-Lin 11-1 in the opener of their twinbill. Drew Druckenmiller fired a seven-inning shutout in the 3-0 Game 2 win. At Poplarville, PRCC rallied from 3-1 down in Game 1, scoring the go-ahead run on a knock by Jackson Academy product Parker Ryan en route to a 7-3 victory. The Wildcats trailed most of Game 2 but won it 7-6 on a two-run walk-off hit by Alex Perry, former North Pike standout, current MACCC batter of the week. “Every time out is a dogfight,” Pearl River coach Michael Avalon said in a school release. PRCC has won seven straight games, Jones five in a row. Jones beat PRCC 8-5 in a non-league contest in Ellisville on March 1. The two will meet again in late April. … Sitting in a tie for third place in the MACCC are Northeast and East Central, both 5-1, neither ranked in the national poll.

18 Mar

hot spots

As the junior college season begins to warm, the hot spots for today are Poplarville and Perkinston. Pearl River Community College, tied for second in this week’s NJCAA Division II poll, hosts Mississippi Delta in a doubleheader showdown of 3-1 conference teams. PRCC, ranked No. 1 in preseason, is 22-4 and 10-2 at home. The visiting Trojans are 7-12-1 overall but have beaten Mississippi Gulf Coast and East Mississippi (twice) in league play. Gulf Coast, 2-2 in the MACCC, welcomes Itawamba (3-1) in another key matchup. No. 6 Meridian, also 3-1, hosts 0-4 Holmes and 13th-ranked Jones (3-1) is at East Mississippi (1-3). Hinds, 2-2 in conference and ranked 17th, visits 0-4 Coahoma. Northeast and East Central are also off to 3-1 starts. The Tigers are at Southwest (1-3) and the Warriors are at Baton Rouge. … Individual standouts include ICC’s Matthew Martinolich, batting .486; Gulf Coast’s Charlie Keller (12 home runs); Hinds’ Connor Chisolm (34 runs); Meridian’s Dalton McIntyre (18 steals); PRCC’s Cooper Cooksey (5-0, 0.83 ERA); MCC’s Cole Boswell (5-0, 0.96); and Northwest’s Brayden Sanders (4 saves, 0.00 ERA).

05 Mar

juco snapshot

Mississippi’s junior colleges are still tuning up for conference play, which starts for most next weekend, and no team’s motor is running more smoothly than No. 1-ranked Pearl River Community College. The Wildcats, defending national champs in NJCAA Division II, are 15-3, a notch above unranked Jones (14-4) with ninth-ranked Meridian (12-4) lurking. PRCC is led by Alex Perry, a .403 hitter whose 25 knocks are the most of any MACCC player, and Will Passeau, 3-1 with a 2.74 ERA and a state-best 32 strikeouts. The Wildcats have home games today against Lansing and Baton Rouge. Jones, heading into a three-way event Wednesday with Itawamba (10-3) and Delta in Cleveland, has been sparked by Gatlin Sanders, batting .418 with two homers and 18 RBIs. Meridian’s leaders are Dalton McIntyre, a .451 batter with 13 steals, and Chris Boswell, who is 4-0 with a 0.86 ERA. Gulf Coast has the state’s top home run hitters in Charlie Keller and Sean Smith — both with eight, which ranks second nationally — but the Bulldogs are just 7-9. Smith, batting .488, also leads MACCC in RBIs with 25, three more than Hinds’ Dylan Coleman. Hinds, ranked No. 15 in the preseason poll, is 11-6. The best closer in the state to date has been Brayden Sanders, who has three saves and a 0.00 ERA in six appearances for Northwest (11-6). … The next NJCAA D-II poll will be released March 13. Nine of the state’s 15 teams currently have winning records.

16 Feb

newbies of note

Never easy to predict which newcomers will have significant impact at the state’s Big 4 NCAA Division I schools. But there are some obvious ones to keep an eye on. To wit: At Ole Miss, there is freshman right-hander Grayson Saunier, already penciled in as the No. 2 starter for the defending national champs. He reportedly was quite impressive in the fall. Saunier, 6 feet 4, 200 pounds, was ranked in the Top 200 2022 drafts prospects by mlb.com as a senior at Colliersville High in Tennessee and was drafted in the 19th round by Texas, though he was firm in his commitment to the Rebels. (Colliersville, incidentally, is the school that produced Zack Cozart and Drew Pomeranz, who left UM as first-rounders en route to fine big league careers.) At Mississippi State, much attention will be focused on freshman outfielder Dakota Jordan, the ex-Jackson Academy star from Canton who was the state’s Gatorade player of the year in 2022. Also a Top 200 draft prospect, he went undrafted, likely because of his commitment to State. He batted .524 with 16 homers and 57 RBIs last year at JA. The SEC will be a different type of challenge. At Southern Miss, the much-traveled Tate Parker has landed as a transfer from juco national champ Pearl River Community College. The NJCAA Division II national player of the year in 2022 — when he batted .450 with 19 homers and set the school’s career homer mark — he’s in the running for an outfield job with the Golden Eagles, pegged by some as the top team in the Sun Belt Conference. (Parker’s brother Brandon is a former Gulf Coast CC star now in Atlanta’s system.) At Jackson State, Arderrius Townsend, a transfer from Northwest CC’s perennially strong program, might be one to watch. The 6-1, 225-pound outfielder hit 11 homers for the Rangers last season and was career .290 hitter in Senatobia. The D-I schools open their seasons on Friday. P.S. Kudos to Bridley Thomas, a newcomer at D-II Mississippi College, who hit for the cycle in a Choctaws win on Tuesday. Thomas, a Meridian CC transfer and former Northwest Rankin High standout, scored four runs and drove in two in that game for 2-6 MC.

15 Feb

the river runs strong

Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown, or so they say. There is certainly no evidence of apprehension in Poplarville, where defending national champion Pearl River Community College has roared out of the gate with an 8-0 start. The Wildcats, currently ranked No. 1 in NJCAA Division II, swept a doubleheader from Coastal Alabama South on Tuesday, outscoring the visitors 12-3 while yielding no earned runs. For the year, PRCC has outscored its opponents 71-21, hit .364 as a unit and swiped 27 bases. Seven different pitchers worked Tuesday and combined for 20 strikeouts, prompting coach Michael Avalon to rave about the performance in a school release. As for the hitters, Petal’s Blake Hooks was 2-for-4 with two RBIs in the opener. Preston Soper, a Germantown High product, went 2-for-4 and drove in two runs in Game 2. Soper is batting .550 on the year with eight RBIs. Petal’s Logan Walters, hitting .429, leads the club with 11 RBIs. PRCC will face challenges down the road in the rugged MACCC — Meridian and Hinds are also ranked in the top 15 nationally — but appears up to the task.