Tag Archives: Millsaps College

28 Apr

finality

Millsaps College’s season ended Saturday in soul-crushing fashion: a 4-3 loss on a walk-off home run that capped a four-run ninth inning for Centre (Ky.), the top seed in the SAA postseason. With the defeat in Game 2 of the best-of-3 playoff series, the the NCAA Division III Majors end the season at 14-27. … Rust’s run in the GCAC Tournament at Smith-Wills Stadium ended with a 21-11 loss to regular season champion Wiley (Texas). The NAIA Bearcats, who went 2-2 in the tournament, finished 16-33. Tougaloo’s season ended in the Jackson tourney on Friday, also with a loss to Wiley; the Bulldogs went 13-35. … Mississippi College’s season ended in a rough manner: The Choctaws were swept in a three-game series at rival Delta State, finishing the year at 20-25, 10-20 in the Division II Gulf South Conference. DSU, which is on to the GSC Tournament next weekend, found enough pitching to win 8-6, 5-3 and 9-2. … Ole Miss did not find enough pitching to win Saturday’s rubber game against nationally ranked Alabama, falling 10-3 in Oxford. The ailing Rebels (23-20, 7-14 SEC) surrendered 30 runs in the three games. Ole Miss plays Mississippi State in the so-called Governor’s Cup game at Trustmark Park in Pearl next Wednesday. … Pearl River Community College beat Northwest CC 7-1 in Poplarville to clinch the MACCC regular season title. The Wildcats, ranked No. 4 in NJCAA Division II, are 46-8, 25-3 in conference, and will host the Region 23 Tournament May 13-17. They’ll be joined by LSU-Eunice and the winners of the MACCC’s four play-in series. … Ex-Southern Miss star Nick Sandlin, a Georgia native, pitched a 1-2-3 11th inning to notch his first career save (in 155 appearances) as Cleveland took down Atlanta 4-2 at Truist Park. Sandlin has a 2.84 ERA and a 0.71 WHIP in 14 games for the first-place Guardians.

21 Apr

numbers of note

1,000 — Career wins for Ole Miss coach Mike Bianco, who has notched 900 of those W’s with the Rebels. The milestone came in Game 2 of a Saturday doubleheader at Georgia, which the Rebels won 3-2 to salvage a game in the SEC series. Ethan Lege homered and Brayden Jones delivered some clutch relief work for UM (21-8, 6-12).
20 — Wins for Belhaven University in coach Andrew Gipson’s first season. The Blazers split a CCS twinbill at Huntingdon (Ala.) on Saturday, getting win No. 20 in Game 1 behind the pitching of Colton Sylvester, who is 6-1 with a 3.13 ERA in 14 games. Staff ace Brett Sanchez (5-2, 2.86) won the series opener on Friday for BU (20-14, 9-5).
1 — All-time series wins for Blue Mountain Christian against SSAC rival William Carey University. After pounding the 25th-ranked Crusaders 19-5 in Friday’s series opener in Hattiesburg, the Toppers rallied to win Game 1 of a Saturday doubleheader 11-9. Ammon Murphy threw 5 1/3 innings of stellar relief for BMC (27-18, 11-16). Carey (27-14, 17-10) won the series finale 10-7 and leads the all-time series 33-8.
13 — Losses in the last 14 games for Millsaps College, which was swept in three games this weekend at Birmingham-Southern in its last SAA series of the season. Millsaps (14-24, 4-17) has one regular season game left — at home Tuesday vs. LeTourneau — before meeting top-seeded Centre next weekend in the opening round of the SAA playoffs. Centre swept the Majors in a three-game set last weekend at Twenty Field.
32 — Runs allowed by Delta State pitching in a three-game sweep at the hands of conference foe Lee University (Tenn.). The Statesmen are 25-19, 16-11 Gulf South, despite a negative run differential (286 scored, 292 allowed). The team’s staff ERA is 5.83, which actually ranks middle-of-the-pack in the heavy-hitting GSC.

09 Mar

in the spotlight

Millsaps College’s Wil Wood will make his next start in what has been a dominant season when the Majors begin Southern Athletic Association play this weekend (today-Sunday at Twenty Field) against rival Rhodes. Grad student Wood, a 6-foot-4, 218-pound left-hander, is 3-0 with a 0.72 ERA and national-best 43 strikeouts in 25 innings for the NCAA Division III Majors (10-4). Wood was the D-III pitcher of the month for February, when he threw a no-hitter. The Memphis native is no flash in the pan: He won 17 games over the previous two years for the Majors. … Dakota Jordan, the ex-Jackson Academy star now at Mississippi State, went 4-for-4 with a homer Friday as the Bulldogs (10-4) beat Evansville 5-2 for their seventh straight win. Jordan has 13 hits, including three homers, during State’s win streak and is batting .396 with six bombs and 20 RBIs on the season. He hit the game-deciding homer against Southern Miss on Tuesday at Pearl’s Trustmark Park. … USM’s Billy Butler blasted two home runs in a 9-4 win at Louisiana Tech on Friday and has now homered in three straight games, including a big bomb at Trustmark Park in the loss to State. USM (9-5) plays LaTech (12-2) again today in Game 2 of the non-conference series. A senior transfer from Rhode Island, the 6-2, 234-pound Butler was an All-Atlantic 10 pick in 2023 and hit 19 homers in his Rams career. In nine games for USM, he is batting .423 with a team-best four homers and six RBIs. … Jackson State’s Joseph Eichelberger, whose hot hitting has drawn a lot of attention, went 0-for-4 in a loss against Presbyterian on Friday in the opener of the Grind City Classic at Memphis. The juco transfer will take a .511 average (and 22 RBIs) into today’s game against Butler. The Tigers (10-4) will also play host Memphis on Sunday.

29 Jul

remember the time

On this date in 2009, the Philadelphia Phillies — defending World Series champs — swung a big trade with Cleveland for left-hander Cliff Lee, the former Meridian Community College star and 2008 Cy Young Award winner. Lee went 7-4 with a 3.39 ERA down the stretch for the Phillies and 4-0 in the postseason, but the team lost to the New York Yankees in the World Series. Lee was traded to Seattle in the off-season. On July 29, 2010, the Phillies, again eyeing a postseason run, traded with Houston for Roy Oswalt, the former Holmes CC standout who had won an ERA title in 2006. Oswalt went 7-1 with a 1.74 for the Phils and 1-1 in the postseason as the team lost to San Francisco in the National League Championship Series. After the 2010 season, Philadelphia brought Lee back as a free agent. The Phils entered the 2011 season with a fantastic rotation — famously hailed as the “legion of arms” on the cover of Sports Illustrated — of Lee, Oswalt, Roy Halladay, Cole Hamels and Joe Blanton. The team won 102 games — Lee won 17, Oswalt nine — and the NL East title but fell in the division series to St. Louis. Lee and Oswalt both lost their starts. Oswalt left after the 2011 season and was soon out of the game. Lee pitched three more years in Philly with only modest success. Neither would appear in another postseason game, and the Phillies didn’t make the postseason again until last year. P.S. Props to Millsaps College coach Jim Page and former Mississippi State and big league pitcher Paul Maholm for their formal induction today into the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame, a very deserving honor for each.

21 Feb

rivalry time

Millsaps College is 2-4 and has lost four straight, the last two against teams ranked in the top four nationally in NCAA Division III. Belhaven University is 0-5, including two one-run losses and a pair of two-run defeats. One of the two will have its spirits lifted tonight at Trustmark Park in Pearl, where the D-III rivals will meet in the first Maloney Trophy Series game of the season. Belhaven holds the trophy, having swept the three-game series last year, including a 29-13 rout in the finale. The Blazers, an NAIA program until just a few years ago, lead the all-time series 29-17 and have won the last seven. Another high-scoring affair could be in the offing in tonight’s 6 p.m. contest, despite the TeePee’s reputation as a pitcher’s park. Jim Page’s Majors have a staff ERA of 7.02. (Wil Wood, a first-team all-conference pick in 2022, has an 8.10 ERA in two starts.) Kyle Palmer’s Blazers have posted a 6.21. (Preseason All-America pick Brett Sanchez has a 5.25.) Millsaps brings a .297 team batting average into the game, led by Case Page at .440 and Chris Hart at .360 (with six RBIs). Kyle McLaughlin leads Belhaven with a .500 average and six runs, and Dawson Albin is at .294. The Blazers are hitting just .244 as a unit. Mississippi offers up an abundance of in-state rivalry games at the various levels every season. Millsaps-Belhaven, with a trophy on the line, is one of the best. P.S. Former Madison Central High star Braden Montgomery, now at Stanford, had an eventful game on Sunday. He hit a three-run double in the top of the ninth to put the Cardinal ahead, gave up a game-tying home run in the bottom of the ninth, scored a run as part of the Cardinal’s eight-run 10th and pitched a scoreless bottom half (with two strikeouts) to get the win in a wild 21-13 victory at Cal State Fullerton.

19 Oct

called to hall

A crafty left-hander who was the eighth overall pick in the major league draft and a college slugger who has topped 800 wins as the coach at his alma mater are among the eight new selections to the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame. Paul Maholm and Jim Page are joined in the 2023 class by former NFL stars Lewis Tillman, Patrick Surtain, John Mangum and Jeff Herrod, former basketball player and coach Carol Ross and Olympic skeet shooter Tony Rosetti. They were introduced at a press conference Wednesday at the Hall of Fame and Museum in Jackson. The formal induction ceremony will be held next summer. Maholm, who grew up in Holly Springs, was an All-American at Mississippi State who won 27 games over his three seasons and was drafted No. 8 by Pittsburgh in 2003. He spent 10 years in the big leagues, winning 77 games, twice posting 10-win seasons. Page batted a school-record .487 as a senior at Millsaps College in 1985 and went on to become the Majors’ coach, a job he still holds. He is 815-554-3 all-time and has won eight coach of the year awards at the NCAA Division III school. P.S. Mangum, from Magee, is the father of Jake Mangum, the ex-MSU outfielder and two-time Ferriss Trophy winner who is an up-and-coming player in the New York Mets’ minor league system.

04 May

may madness

Tournament baseball, with its air of finality, rarely fails to produce great drama. We’ve already seen it: Millsaps College, pushed into a winner-take-all game after a crushing 25-10 loss to Rhodes last Saturday, responded hours later with a 7-2 win to advance to the Southern Athletic Association championship series. Ryan Erwin and Wil Wood, both on very short rest, stepped up on a combo nine-hitter and Avery Brock hit a big home run for the 6-seeded Majors (24-19). They’ll meet top-seeded Birmingham-Southern (36-8) in a best-of-3 in Birmingham this coming weekend (Sunday-Monday) for an automatic berth in the NCAA Division III Tournament. Expect more drama this week. On tap today: William Carey, defending champion of the Southern States Athletic Conference Tournament, plays Mobile and Blue Mountain meets Loyola-New Orleans in the first round of the event at Columbus, Ga. The winner of the double-elimination tourney gets an automatic bid to the NAIA nationals. Third-seeded Carey (33-14) placed three players on the all-conference first team: outfielders R.J. Stinson and Chris Williams and pitcher A.J. Stinson, 9-0 this season. Alex Frilliman and Dylan Hale made the team for BMC (28-23), seeded seventh. On Thursday: The MACCC best-of-3 series begin. East Central Community College is at East Mississippi, Mississippi Gulf Coast is at Hinds, Jones College is at Northeast and Northwest is at Meridian. Regular season champion Pearl River, ranked No. 2 in the nation, clinched a berth in the NJCAA Region 23 Tournament, which starts May 16 in Poplarville. The four playoff winners will advance to the six-team bracket, which will also include LSU-Eunice. On Friday: Delta State begins play in the Gulf South Conference Tournament as the No. 1 seed, meeting 8-seed Shorter in the first round at Oxford, Ala. The Statesmen (30-13) won their 22nd GSC regular season title last weekend and will be seeking a 16th tournament crown. The winner of the eight-team double-elimination tourney gets an automatic bid the NCAA D-II Tournament. Belhaven (26-14) plays Hardin-Simmons at Richardson, Texas, in the first round of double-elimination pod play in the D-III American Southwest Conference Tournament.

25 Apr

three things, college edition

The unquestioned top story in Mississippi college baseball in 2022 has been the steady rise of Southern Miss, ranked No. 6 in the country in the new Baseball America poll. Also high on the list: the struggles of Mississippi State and Ole Miss; and the resurgence of NCAA Division III schools Belhaven University and Millsaps College. To wit: USM swept Rice over the weekend, holding the once-mighty Owls to five runs in three games as starters Tanner Hall, Hunter Riggins and Hurston Waldrep took turns at dominance. The Golden Eagles (32-8, 16-2 C-USA) have won 14 straight games and can set a school record for consecutive W’s by beating Southeastern Louisiana on the road Tuesday. USM’s staff has a 2.80 ERA and 460 strikeouts in 363 innings. That kind of pitching is hard to beat. … Defending national champion MSU and Ole Miss, briefly ranked No. 1 this season, had fallen to the bottom of the SEC West standings when they met in Oxford over the weekend. Who saw that coming? But the outcome at Swayze Field was fairly predictable: The Bulldogs won their sixth straight series over the Rebels, with coach Chris Lemonis improving to 8-2 vs. UM. Rebels coach Mike Bianco is 38-48 vs. State. They meet again Tuesday at Trustmark Park in Pearl in the Governor’s Cup (nee Mayor’s Trophy) game with a huge crowd expected. Has the rivalry begun to wane, as some wonder? Not hardly. “I grew up hating those guys. This is awesome,” Brad Cumbest, who hit the game-winning homer for State in Saturday’s rubber game, told 247sports.com. … Millsaps swept Sewanee at home over the weekend to improve to 21-18 and 11-10 in the Southern Athletic Association. Jim Page’s Majors are the 6-seed in the conference tournament slated for Georgia later this week and will meet old rival Rhodes in the opening round. Belhaven took two of three from Ozarks (at Frierson Field in Clinton) over the weekend and is 24-13, 17-10 in the American Southwest Conference. Under third-year coach Kyle Palmer, the Blazers are currently third in the league with one series remaining before the tournament, which will be the team’s last in the ASC. BU moves to the Collegiate Conference of the South next season.

27 Feb

mr. 800

Congratulations are in order for Jim Page, who earned his 800th win as Millsaps College coach on Saturday. How fitting that his son Case went 2-for-2 with two RBIs, two runs and two walks in the Majors’ 14-0 victory against Eureka College at Twenty Field in Jackson. Page, a good man as well as a good coach, is essentially synonymous with Millsaps baseball, having coached the Majors for 34 years following a stellar career there as a player in the early 1980s. He still holds the school record for batting average in a season at .487. Page has directed the Majors to eight NCAA Division III regional appearances and a berth in the 2013 College World Series. After a couple of down years, the purple-and-white appears resurgent in 2022, off to a 9-3 start. The Majors are slated to host MUW today, then welcome Centre College next weekend for the start of their Southern Athletic Association schedule.

25 Feb

putting up numbers

Millsaps College is off to a hot start that reached its greatest intensity last Sunday, when the Majors routed the University of Dallas 22-1 at Twenty Field. The Majors are 7-3 heading into another three-game tournament at home this weekend that will conclude with an interesting game against MUW on Sunday. Mark Petkovsek Jr. and freshman Bradley Pelle are batting .372 each, and Ryan Erwin is 3-0 with a 2.25 ERA in four appearances.
Other numbers of note at the state’s small schools:
8.36: Delta State’s staff ERA through eight games. The Statesmen (3-5) surrendered 36 runs while getting swept in a three-game Gulf South series at Shorter last weekend. On the positive side, freshman transfer Hayden Cooper has three homers in 17 at-bats. DSU hosts GSC foe Montevallo at Ferriss Field this weekend.
16: Ken Scott’s RBI total through 11 games for Mississippi College. The senior outfielder from Meridian, by way of East Central Community College, is batting .341 with three homers and six stolen bases for the Choctaws (3-8, 1-2 GSC). They host league opponent Christian Brothers this weekend.
.301: William Carey’s team batting average. Led by R.J. Stinson at .467, the Crusaders are off to a 9-3 start (all home games) and play Bryant & Stratton-Albany at Wheeler Field this weekend. Note, too, that Carey pitchers have 111 strikeouts in 90 innings.
16: Runs by Blue Mountain in a 16-6 win against a good Freed-Hardeman team on Wednesday. Dylan Hale, a DeSoto Central product, went 3-for-4 with a homer and four RBIs for the Toppers (5-5), who host Culver-Stockton this weekend.
.140: Belhaven’s team batting average. Caleb Whittle, a senior from Fulton via Itawamba CC, is hitting .389; no other player is above .200. The Blazers (2-4 overall and in the American Southwest Conference) are at Concordia-Texas for a league series this weekend.
P.S. Reggie Williams, the ex-big leaguer, is slated to make his Alcorn State coaching debut this weekend at McNeese State. … Mississippi Valley State, which didn’t win a game in 2021, blasted Rust College twice on Sunday in Stanley Stubbs’ debut as coach but faces a sterner test this weekend at Nicholls State.