Tag Archives: junior college baseball

18 Mar

small talk

The state’s small colleges will roll out the welcome mats this weekend, with Delta State, Mississippi College, Belhaven and Millsaps hosting out-of-state guests for conference series. Also on the agenda are two matchups of in-state rivals: Rust at Tougaloo and Blue Mountain at William Carey. Tougaloo just beat Rust twice (13-0 and 15-1) in Holly Springs on Thursday; they’ll play another twinbill on Saturday. The BMC-Carey series (single game today, two on Saturday at Wheeler Field in Hattiesburg) should be more competitive. Maybe. Carey is 18-8 and 4-2 in the Southern States Athletic Conference. The visiting Toppers are 13-13 and 0-6. Led by Tyler Odom (.416), Carey is batting .319 as a team. The Crusaders’ pitching also has been very good, posting a 2.81 ERA. Coach Bobby Halford has a stable of starters to choose from, including Devin Smith (3-0, 1.64 ERA) and J.D. Little (4-1, 3.50). For BMC, All-SSAC first baseman Seth Davis has scuffled (.227), but Miciah Heard has been hot (.325) and Caleb Leach has four homers in 33 at-bats. The key for Curt Fowler’s Toppers might be how well their pitching staff (6.90 ERA) handles Odom and Co. P.S. In juco land, the state’s two big dogs will be on home turf on Saturday. Jones County Junior College (19-1, 2-0 MACJC) will host East Mississippi Community College (4-14, 0-2). Mason Irby and Erick Hoard have combined for 13 bombs for the Bobcats; Hoard hit a grand slam and a three-run shot in a sweep of East Central on Wednesday. Meridian CC (17-1, 2-0) welcomes Copiah-Lincoln (5-10, 1-1). Jones and Meridian were rained out of their big showdown last weekend; it has been rescheduled for May 2, the end of the regular season.

11 Mar

weather permitting …

If it ever stops raining, Meridian Community College’s Scaggs Field looks like the place to be on Saturday. Weather permitting, the Eagles will host Jones County Junior College in the marquee matchup of the first round of MACJC play. Jones is 17-1, having lost for the first time (to Arkansas Baptist) last Sunday. MCC is 15-1, having lost only to Jefferson (Mo.) in mid-February. Both teams are led at the plate by Southern Miss signees: Jones’ Mason Irby is batting an amazing .571 with seven homers and 27 RBIs, while MCC’s Jaylon Keys is batting .411 with four homers and 11 steals. The Bobcats, in their first year under coach Chris Kirtland, also feature Clint Sasser (.469, 21 steals) and a bevy of good arms, topped by freshman Ben Stiglets (4-0, 0.53 ERA). Eason Weeks and Baylor Obert are .400 hitters for Dillon Sudduth’s Eagles, and the most consistent pitcher has been Hunter Mullis (3-0, 3.71). The doubleheader is scheduled to start at 2 p.m. … Pearl River (15-3) is slated to open against Coahoma in Clarksdale on Saturday. For the Wildcats, Zachary Clark has been a standout on a strong offensive club. The Alabama signee is batting .388 with eight bombs, 24 RBIs and 21 runs. Coahoma (6-11 with four straight wins) has some good arms on a staff with a collective 4.07 ERA. … In other Saturday MACJC openers, all twinbills, it’s Itawamba-Hinds, Northwest-East Central, Southwest-East and Copiah-Lincoln—Delta. Weather is likely to impact this schedule. The Gulf Coast-Northeast matchup already has been postponed until May because of weather concerns.

29 Feb

the undefeated

As the curtain closes on February, only one Mississippi junior college remains unbeaten. Jones County JC, under first-year coach Chris Kirtland, moved to 12-0 on Sunday by sweeping a twinbill from Kaskaskia (Ill.) in Ellisville. Mason Irby and Erick Hoard had big hits for the Bobcats on Sunday, which is what they’ve been doing all along for a team averaging over 10 runs a game. Irby, an All-America candidate, is batting .590 with five home runs and 19 RBIs. Hoard is at .436 with three homers and 15 RBIs. Seven regulars are hitting over .400, including Clint Sasser at .581 with 15 steals. The pitching staff is topped by Ben Stiglets (3-0, 0.75 ERA), Mason Strickland (1-0, one save, 0.79) and Will Brand (2-0, 3.75). Kirtland, a longtime JCJC assistant and former Southern Miss player, took the reins this year from Christian Ostrander, who had quite a nice run with the Bobcats, including an NJCAA Division II World Series appearance four years ago. “This is the kind of place that sets you up for success,” Kirtland said when he was introduced as the new coach back in December. To his credit, he has pushed all the right buttons so far. … There are four one-loss teams remaining in the MACJC (Meridian, Itawamba, Southwest and Northwest) and one with two losses (Delta). Hinds, the only state team ranked in preseason, is off to a 4-6 start. Conference play, which starts in mid-March, promises to be a lot of fun, as usual.

19 Feb

in the swing

Pearl River Community College is not among the six unbeaten Mississippi jucos, but the Wildcats’ offensive output has been perhaps the most impressive. PRCC, off to a 9-3 start, is averaging 10 runs a game with a .426 average, a .663 slugging percentage and 15 home runs. George Teer is batting .528, Carter Hankins .515 with four homers and 21 RBIs and Zack Clark .450 with four bombs and 12 RBIs. Hankins was named the NJCAA Division II national player of the week on Thursday. .… Jones County Junior College improved to 6-0 by outscoring Baton Rouge CC 41-5 in a twinbill on Wednesday. Mason Irby, a Southern Miss signee, had two homers and six RBIs in a 27-5 win and three more hits in a 14-0 victory. … Timothy Rowe is batting .636 and Mississippi State transfer Delvin Zinn .545 (with six RBIs and eight runs) for 4-0 Itawamba. … Northwest’s 4-0 start has been fueled by, among others, LeeMarcus Boyd, a USM signee who is batting .429 with a homer and seven RBIs. … Nationally ranked Hinds is 2-2, having played all its games against Bossier Parish (La.). Chase Cockrell had a four-hit, five-RBI game in a 13-2 win on Wednesday. … East Mississippi has started sluggishly at 1-7, though freshman Marcus Ragan is batting .400 with three RBIs and seven runs. … Meridian CC’s Hunter Mullis was the MACJC’s pitcher of the week after throwing a complete-game five-hitter with 13 strikeouts against Wallace-Selma (Ala.) last week. The Eagles are 5-1.

16 Feb

by the numbers

14 – Pitchers used by Millsaps College in going 1-2 in the Millsaps Invitational over the weekend. Daniel Ross went 5 1/3 innings against LaGrange on Friday to get the lone win.
13 – RBIs by Pearl River Community College’s Carter Hankins in six games over the weekend. The Wildcats (8-2) won five of the six.
11 – Runs in six games this season by Mississippi College’s Logan Ferrell.
10 – RBIs in seven games for Delta State’s Will Robertson.
9 – Losses to start the season for Tougaloo College.
8 – Road games scheduled to start the season for Belhaven University, which opens today against Huntingdon in Montgomery, Ala.
4 – Wins in four games to start Chris Kirtland’s coaching career at Jones County Junior College.
2 – Wins in two starts for William Carey University’s J.D. Little, who has a 1.38 ERA.
1 – Home run on Friday by Mississippi Gulf Coast CC’s Brian Lane, the first at Biloxi’s MGM Park for the Bulldogs.

06 Feb

juco jottings

Playing at MGM Park in Biloxi, it was only fitting that Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College produced a couple of thrillers as it opened the 2016 season on Friday. The Bulldogs split a doubleheader against Jackson State (Tenn.) CC. They took a 5-4, walk-off win in the opener, scoring the game-winner on a fly ball by Marcus Buckley. Tyler Evans had two RBIs in the game as Gulf Coast rallied from a 4-0 deficit. Former Gulf Coast star and ex-big leaguer Matt Lawton threw out the first pitch to start Game 2, but the Bulldogs couldn’t quite pull off a fantastic finish, falling 5-3 in extra innings. Justin Nussbaum had a three-run double for Gulf Coast. … Meridian CC, which opens today against Bishop State at Scaggs Field, is celebrating the 20th anniversary of one its best teams on a long list of good ones. The 1996 Eagles, featuring future big leaguers Jason Smith and Paul Phillips, finished national runners-up in the NJCAA Division I World Series. MCC has had seven teams reach the juco World Series. … Holmes CC coach Kenny Dupont begins his 17th season in Goodman with 471 career wins. … New Northeast Mississippi CC coach Richy Harrelson will make his debut today when Columbia (Tenn.) State CC comes to Booneville. Harrelson, a former Ole Miss standout, was an assistant to former Tigers coach Kent Farris for several years. … Nationally ranked Hinds CC, the defending MACJC champion, opens Wednesday against Bossier (La.) Parish in Raymond. Sam Temple’s Eagles, who lost a lot from last year’s club, will count on production from Kyle O’Keefe (.327 in 110 at-bats 2015) and Hunter Bell (.375 in 48 ABs). … New Jones County JC coach Chris Kirtland will make his debut next Friday, when the Bobcats play Motlow (Tenn.) State in Ellisville. JCJC features one of the state’s best players in catcher Mason Irby, an All-America candidate. … Another juco player to keep a keen eye on this year is Itawamba CC infielder Delvin Zinn, the former Pontotoc High star who transferred from Mississippi State in December. Zinn made some prep All-America teams last season and was drafted by the Chicago Cubs. … Former Northwest Mississippi CC standout Clay Casey is now at Houston. He batted .333 with 12 bombs for the Rangers in 2015. He was drafted out of DeSoto Central High in 2014. … There are eight Mississippi juco products on Louisiana Tech’s roster, six of them from Hinds’ outstanding 2015 team. The Bulldogs’ new pitching coach is former JCJC coach Christian Ostrander.

08 Sep

first steps

Austin Riley was the first Mississippian picked in this year’s MLB draft, going higher than projected as a supplemental first-rounder to Atlanta. His performance as a rookie pro makes Braves brass look pretty sharp. The DeSoto Central High product, a third baseman, batted .304 with 12 homers and 40 RBIs over 60 games at two levels; he hit .351 with five homers at Danville. Austin’s debut was easily the best among Mississippians drafted this June. LeDarious Clark, after a spectacular start (see previous posts), faded in rookie ball for Texas. The former East Mississippi Community College standout finished at .276 with eight homers, 24 RBIs and 29 steals, still not a bad first step on what is a long road to the big leagues. Other good starts from 2015 draftees: Southern Miss alum Cody Carroll put up a 1.75 ERA with three saves in rookie ball for the New York Yankees; ex-Ole Miss star Scott Weathersby went 3-1 with a 2.48 in low Class A for Houston; and Northwest Mississippi CC product Dalton Dulin went 4-for-5 in his last game to finish at .273 with 27 runs in short season A-ball for Washington. The second Mississippian drafted, right-hander Jacob Taylor from Pearl River CC, made just one appearance in Pittsburgh’s system, then had Tommy John surgery. Among those who had a tough time on the field, Melvin Rodriguez, the SWAC player of the year from Jackson State, hit .200 with no homers in short season A-ball with Washington; ex-UM slugger Sikes Orvis hit .231 with four homers in 42 games in rookie ball with the Chicago White Sox; and former USM standout James McMahon, the 2015 Ferriss Trophy winner, had a 6.44 ERA at the rookie level for Colorado. P.S. Former Vancleave High star Colin Bray started his pro career in 2013 after Arizona made him a sixth-round pick out of an Alabama junior college. His older brother and fellow VHS alum Tyler was signed a year later by St. Louis, which drafted him in the 23rd round out of Louisiana-Monroe. The Bray brothers, whose father Scott played minor league ball, both were in the Class A Midwest League this summer and crossed paths in a series at Peoria, Ill., in late May/early June. On June 1, with family and friends in the ballpark, Tyler, a pitcher for Peoria, worked a 1-2-3 ninth inning but did not face Colin, who started in right field for Kane County. Colin, 22, had a good full season in the MWL, batting .308 with 52 RBIs, 78 runs and 27 stolen bases. Tyler, 23, had his moments, as well, going 2-2 with two saves and a 4.97 ERA in 24 games after being promoted to Peoria. Perhaps the brothers will hook up again someday, maybe in the big leagues.

07 Aug

random numbers

8 – Hits, including three doubles, a triple and a home run, by Austin Riley in six games for Danville, Atlanta’s advanced rookie team. The former DeSoto Central High star, the 41st overall pick in the June draft, was promoted last week from the Gulf Coast League, where he had seven homers and 21 RBIs.
.349 – Batting average over 73 games for Adam Frazier, the ex-Mississippi State standout now playing at Double-A Altoona in the Pittsburgh system. Frazier, playing shortstop and center field, has 10 hits in his last six games.
2 – Innings pitched in pro ball this season by Jacob Taylor, the Pearl River Community College product drafted in the fourth round by Pittsburgh. Taylor recently had Tommy John surgery and may not pitch again until 2017.
9 – Holds by Tony Sipp, the Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College alum from Pascagoula, for the Houston Astros. Sipp pitched a clean inning Thursday in the first-place Astros’ 5-4 win against Oakland and lowered his ERA to 2.52.
9 – Hits, in 27 at-bats, for Daniel Castro, the Mississippi Braves alumnus who has been filling in at shortstop in Atlanta for injured Andrelton Simmons. Castro had three hits and scored twice in Thursday’s 9-8 win over Miami.
41 – Stolen bases by Tim Anderson, the ex-East Central Community College star now playing at Double-A Birmingham in the Chicago White Sox’s system. Anderson, batting .302, leads all of Double-A in steals and leads the Southern League in hits (126) and runs (62).
4.60 – Aaron Barrett’s ERA for Washington when the Nationals sent the Ole Miss product to Triple-A on Thursday. Barrett had a 2.66 in 2014.
23 – Home runs in 2015 by the Mississippi Braves, including Kevin Ahrens’ game-winner on Thursday against Montgomery. The M-Braves are dead last in the SL in homers; ninth-place Biloxi has 47. Ahrens leads the team with five.
1,220 — Hits in pro ball, including 38 in the big leagues, by Brandon Jones, the ex-Mississippi Braves star who announced his retirement during his 12th season on Wednesday. He was playing for Bridgeport in the independent Atlantic League and batting .243.
18 – Strikeouts, in 15 innings for Pensacola, by Cody Reed, the Northwest Mississippi Community College product who moved from the Kansas City organization to Cincinnati in the Johnny Cueto trade. Lefty Reed is 2-0 with one run allowed in two starts for the Southern League’s Blue Wahoos.

15 Jun

caught short?

A quick check of Atlanta’s top 30 prospects on mlb.com reveals two catchers. Jose Briceno, No. 20, is hitting .156 at Class A Carolina. Tanner Murphy, No. 26, is batting .178 at low Class A Rome. Chris O’Dowd, a fringe prospect acquired in the off-season from Colorado, was hitting .304 for the Double-A Mississippi Braves when he was slapped last week with an 80-game drug suspension. Why is any of this relevant? Well, the Atlanta Braves sent “catcher of the future” Christian Bethancourt down to Triple-A Gwinnett. Relegated to backing up 38-year-old A.J. Pierzynski, Bethancourt, 23, was batting .208 with one home run and had five passed balls and three errors in his 27 games. Bethancourt, who has a rifle arm, seemed to have a breakthrough with the M-Braves in 2013, when he hit .277 with 12 homers and made the Southern League postseason All-Star team. He was a consensus top five prospect in the system after a solid season at Gwinnett in 2014. Atlanta essentially handed him the starting job this spring — and he fumbled it away in short order. Can he ever recover it? Is Atlanta shopping for a catcher? The Braves drafted five last week, two from four-year colleges and a second-rounder from a California high school. Maybe there’s a “catcher of the future” in that bunch. P.S. LSU lost its College World Series opener to TCU 10-3 on Sunday, but former Southwest Mississippi Community College star Kade Scivicque held up his end with a 2-for-4, one-RBI day. Scivicque, the Tigers’ catcher and cleanup batter, is hitting .350 with six homers and 46 RBIs on the season. LSU plays an elimination game on Tuesday. … Arkansas, facing elimination in the CWS tonight against Miami, has two Mississippi juco products on its roster, pitcher Jackson Lowery of Meridian CC and outfielder Krisjon Wilkerson of Pearl River CC. Neither appeared in Saturday’s 5-3 loss to Virginia.

09 Jun

minor matters

D.J. Davis, the first Mississippi-connected player chosen in the 2012 draft, is making a strong bid for promotion in the Toronto system. The ex-Stone County High star drove in eight runs on Monday for the low Class A Lansing Lugnuts. The lefty-hitting outfielder, who went 4-for-5 with a home run and two doubles in the game, is batting .294 with three homers, 30 RBIs, 32 runs, four triples and nine steals over 53 games in his second tour of the Midwest League. A key for Davis this year has been cutting down on his strikeouts. … Chris Stratton, also a first-rounder in 2012 (No. 20 overall to Davis’ 17), made his Triple-A debut in the San Francisco system last Friday. Stratton, from Tupelo by way of Mississippi State, allowed one run in 6 1/3 innings in a victory by Sacramento. He was 1-5 with a 4.14 ERA at Double-A Richmond before his promotion. … Knocking on the Double-A door is Horn Lake’s Cody Reed, a second-round pick out of Northwest Mississippi CC by Kansas City in 2013 (and the third Mississippian picked in that draft, after Hunter Renfroe and Tim Anderson). The 6-foot-5, 220-pound left-hander is 5-3 with a 1.29 ERA for Wilmington in the high-A Carolina League. … Anderson, the East Central CC alum who missed a couple days with a shoulder injury, is playing again at Double-A Birmingham (Chicago White Sox) and is hitting .304 with 21 bags. MSU product and Crystal Springs native Renfroe, at Double-A San Antonio in San Diego’s system, has scuffled a bit (.226, three homers). … Ole Miss alum Bobby Wahl, another 2013 draftee, is also toiling in Double-A and has a 3.76 ERA with four saves for Midland (Oakland) in the Texas League. P.S. Ed Easley, drafted way back in 2007 out of MSU, got his first big league RBI on Monday for St. Louis. He is still looking for his first hit; he is 0-for-2 in three plate appearances. … Hinds CC’s Randy Bell was named an NJCAA first-team All-America pitcher. The South Alabama signee was 12-0 with a 2.37 ERA for the state champion Eagles.