Tag Archives: junior college baseball

12 Mar

top of the world

Jones County Junior College takes the field in Ellisville today with a target on its back. The Bobcats are, for the first time in school history, the No. 1-ranked team in NJCAA Division II. The 17-1 Bobcats tangle today with Itawamba Community College in a twinbill at Community Bank Park and open MACJC South Division play on Saturday at Pearl River. JCJC coach Christian Ostrander appears to have a well-balanced club: Four regulars are batting above .350 and three frontline pitchers have ERAs under 1.40. Trent Giambrone leads the JCJC attack with a .452 average and 21 RBIs. Chase Hensley is hitting .375, Joshua Pankratz (from Taylorsville) .362 and Alex Shermer (Northwest Rankin) .352. Chris Morgan (Madison Central) has 22 runs and eight steals. Former Terry High star Wes Stringer is the Bobcats’ ace, with a 5-0 record and a 0.26 ERA. Lane Ratliff (Purvis) is 3-0, 1.35 and Hensley is 3-0, 1.38. P.S. Three other state schools are ranked in the latest juco D-II poll. East Mississippi is No. 6, Northwest (the only team to beat JCJC) is 13th and Northeast is 19th. … DeSoto Central High is No. 19 in Baseball America’s first in-season prep poll. Clay Casey, an Ole Miss commit, is 7-for-19 with seven RBIs for the Jaguars (5-2).

06 Mar

number crunching

Delta State has won 33 straight games — yes, 33! — against Christian Brothers, which comes to Ferriss Field in Cleveland this weekend for a Gulf South Conference series. DSU is 79-11 all-time vs. CBU. The teams will play two on Saturday and a single game Sunday. The Statesmen, still nationally ranked in NCAA Division II, are 7-5 and 6-3 in the GSC. … Jackson State, which opens Southwestern Athletic Conference play this weekend at Braddy Field against Alabama A&M, is batting .211 as a team. And yet, the Tigers are 7-5 and coming off a 5-4 win over South Alabama. In addition to some solid pitching, JSU has 25 stolen bases, 21 sacrifice bunts and five sac flies. … Ole Miss and Mississippi State are 22-6 combined, and Memphis has wins over both of them. The Tigers (11-1) beat the Rebels (11-2) 4-1 on Wednesday. No longer in C-USA, Memphis doesn’t play Southern Miss this year but does take on Alcorn State and Mississippi Valley State in addition to another game with UM. … In Wednesday’s big junior college showdown in Senatobia, Jones County and Northwest split the doubleheader. The Rangers (now 9-5) got a 5-for-5, two-homer performance from Chase Clark in handing the Bobcats (15-1) their first loss of the year, 7-1, in the opener. JCJC won Game 2 5-3 as Trent Giambrone hit the Bobcats’ first homer of the season and Cole Barlow notched his fifth save. … East Mississippi CC improved to 12-4 by taking two from Pearl River at Poplarville on Wednesday. The Lions have swept four doubleheaders already. Chase Reeves had four hits, including a homer, in the PRCC sweep, while Connor Burton got his third save in Game 1 and J’Daylin Jackson his third win in Game 2.

19 Feb

walk the walk

LeDarious Clark, generally considered the top juco prospect in the state, rose to the occasion for East Mississippi Community College on Tuesday with a walk-off grand slam. Clark’s blast, his second of the season, beat Hinds 7-5 in the first game of a doubleheader in Scooba. (The Lions also won Game 2 to improve to 7-3.) Clark, a sophomore outfielder out of Southeast Lauderdale High, is hitting .321 with a .679 slugging percentage, 10 runs, eight RBIs and three steals. … The walk-off was also in style for Mississippi Gulf Coast’s James Land on Tuesday. The freshman from Harrison Central delivered his game-winning home run — his fourth hit of the game — in the bottom of the 11th inning to give the Bulldogs a crazy 17-16 win over Jeff Davis CC in Perkinston.

16 Feb

juco jump-start

Northwest Mississippi Community College, ranked 14th in the NJCAA Division II preseason poll, finally got on the field on Saturday and – ta da – delivered a command performance. The Rangers swept No. 8 North Iowa JC 16-9 and 6-0 at Senatobia. Luke Latham and Taylor King homered in both games for Northwest, and Matt Ferguson threw a two-hitter in Game 2. … Pitching has been the story for Jones County JC, which is 4-0 after beating Jeff Davis CC twice on Saturday. The Bobcats have allowed just eight hits and two runs (with 40 strikeouts) in 30 innings. Former Terry High star Westin Stringer is 2-0 with two dominant outings. … Pearl River, which won 41 games in 2013, is off to a 6-0 start, including a sweep of Mississippi Delta on Friday. Luke McGee, a reverse transfer from Ohio State, is 2-0 for the Wildcats. … Patrick McMahon hit a walk-off homer for Gulf Coast in the first game of a doubleheader against Alabama Southern on Friday. … Northeast, ranked 20th, lost its first two games of the season. … Defending MACJC champion East Central has won three of its first four.