Tag Archives: NAIA

13 Mar

steal this base

There’s a whole lot of thievery going on in Mississippi. Jackson State, which stole six bases in a win over Grambling State on Tuesday, leads NCAA Division I in stolen bases with 59 (in 63 attempts) in its 17 games, of which the Tigers have won 13. Belhaven University has swiped 63 bags (in 16 games), which is second-most in NCAA Division III. Rust College has 86 steals, ranking No. 3 in NAIA, and Blue Mountain Christian has 79 bags, fifth in NAIA. (Not sure what this says about the quality of catching at the NAIA or D-III levels.) At JSU, there is a team-wide emphasis on stealing bags, with three regulars having nine or more and two others bagging four each. Jordan McCladdie leads the Tigers with 13, followed by Rodney Hibler Jr. with 12 and Joseph Eichelberger — the .483 hitter — with nine. Rust is running with even more abandon, having attempted 105 steals in 25 games (7-18 record). Malik Berrien ranks second in NAIA with 24. Hayden Redding has 17 and Bryland Skinner (used most often as a pinch runner) 14 for Blue Mountain, which has bolted to an 18-5 start. Cole Fletcher leads Belhaven with 12. At NAIA William Carey, which has swiped 37 bases, Jerod Williams has 11. … The state’s Big 3 D-I schools haven’t caught the running bug. Southern Miss has just 12 steals, Ole Miss 22 and Mississippi State 23. No individual has more than six bags at any of the three. P.S. Blue Mountain’s Arderrius “Peeko” Townsend has been named the NAIA national player of the week after batting .500 with five homers and 12 RBIs last week. Note: Townsend, more slugger (15 homers in 2024) than sprinter, has swiped eight bases for the Toppers.

27 Feb

leading the way

Pearl River Community College swept the MACCC individual honors for last week, with Hollis Porter taking the hitting award and J.P. Robertson the pitching laurels. Porter, from Hurley, hit .450 with three homers and 10 RBIs during No. 3 PRCC’s 4-2 week. The lefty slugger is tied for the NJCAA Division II lead with nine homers. Ex-Germantown High star Robertson threw six shutout innings, with nine strikeouts, in the Wildcats’ win over No. 20 Parkland. Robertson is 4-0 with a 3.00 ERA for 14-5 PRCC. … Barret Rodgers leads the nation with 30 RBIs for undefeated (16-0), 10th-ranked East Central CC, and Hinds CC’s Lincoln Sheffield is tied for the national lead with 37 strikeouts in 23 innings. … Jackson State’s Joseph Eichelberger, a junior outfielder from Georgia via Paul D. Camp CC, leads NCAA Division I in batting with a .692 average. … For the second time this season, Millsaps’ Wil Wood has earned the Southern Athletic Association pitcher of the week honor. Wood, a grad student, threw a no-hitter with 16 strikeouts against Westminster. He is 2-0 with a 1.00 ERA and 34 K’s on the season for the 8-3 Majors. … Mississippi College leads the Gulf South Conference in hitting with a .326 team average, followed by Delta State at .325. The Choctaws, 9-5 and 3-3 in the GSC, lead the league with 30 homers, topped by former DeSoto Central and East Mississippi CC standout Wesley Sides, who has seven bombs and a .488 average. DSU (9-5, 3-0) is also second in the GSC in runs with 122, having tallied 29 in a three-game sweep at Union University over the weekend. … William Carey University’s John Snyder is tied for the NAIA national lead with five saves. Rust’s Jalik Demar and Blue Mountain’s Hayden Redding are tied for third nationally with 13 stolen bases each.

23 Jan

poll positions

To the list of life’s certainties, you can add this: When an NJCAA poll comes out, several Mississippi schools will be near the top. The Division II preseason poll was released Monday and three state jucos are ranked in the top 13: Pearl River Community College is No. 3, East Central No. 10 and Meridian No. 13. PRCC went 45-13 in 2023 and returns left-hander Conner Ware, an LSU signee, and Jonah Katsaboulas, an infielder who hit .292 last season. The Wildcats open Jan. 30 in Poplarville against Coastal Alabama South. ECCC won the state and Region 23 championships last year and welcomes back second-team All-America Mo Little, who hit .340 with 12 homers as a freshman. … Preseason polls can and often do miss the mark. Case in point: William Carey University wasn’t ranked in the NAIA coaches preseason poll in 2023 but went 49-11 and reached the World Series. The Crusaders are ranked fourth in the 2024 preseason poll, which was released back in the fall. … Neither Ole Miss nor Mississippi State, both coming off rough years, appears in the d1baseball.com Top 25. But, in the site’s 2024 transfer class rankings, UM checks in at No. 7 — ex-Arizona State shortstop Luke Hill being the most notable newcomer — and State at No. 24. In the site’s freshman class rankings, State is No. 9 and UM No. 15. … Jackson State is ranked No. 5 in Black College Nine’s HBCU large school rankings and Rust College is No. 3 in the small school class. JSU finished 28-25 in 2023. Rust, an NAIA member, went 25-25 and won the regular season title in the Gulf Coast Athletic Conference. P.S. The new National Baseball Hall of Fame class will be announced today, and there is a decent chance that former Jackson Generals pitcher Billy Wagner will make the cut for Cooperstown.

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.

17 Apr

poll positions

East Central Community College, which has surged to the top of the MACCC standings, has finally cracked the Top 20 of the NJCAA Division II poll. The Warriors, 17-3 in the league and 27-14 overall, are ranked 17th, fourth among the four state jucos in the poll. Pearl River, 17-5 in conference and the defending national champ, is No. 3, Meridian No. 5 and Jones No. 15. Heads up: Pearl River visits Decatur on Tuesday for a rather large doubleheader; the jucos always play single-day twinbills. In the last week, ECCC has swept Delta (at Moorhead), swept Jones (at Ellisville) and split with Itawamba. Neal Holliman’s Warriors also have registered sweeps against Hinds, Northwest, Copiah-Lincoln and Northeast. Eli Collins, a former Northeast Jones High star, is batting .445 with 40 RBIs, 55 runs and 25 steals. Brandon’s Mo Little leads the team with nine homers and 58 RBIs while batting at a .352 clip. On the bump, Luke Cooley (Wayne Academy) is 4-0 with a 3.29 ERA and David Burton (Newton County) has five saves. The team’s success really shouldn’t be a surprise: The Warriors have won three state titles in the last 10 years. … William Carey University, 31-9 heading into a home game today against Mobile, is 31-9 (13-4 SSAC) and ranked 16th in the latest NAIA coaches poll. The Crusaders swept a doubleheader from No. 7 Mobile on Friday.

28 Mar

battle lines drawn

Before the season began, Southern Miss-Ole Miss gleamed as a Top 25 matchup. Both schools, coming off highly successful seasons, appeared in various national preseason polls. Collegiate Baseball Magazine had USM at No. 18 and Ole Miss, the reigning national champ, at 24, plus Mississippi State at 22. Sadly, the Big 3 have fallen out of the CB poll and most of the others, though UM still shows up in a couple. Even if some of the luster is gone from tonight’s USM-UM game (6 p.m.) at Trustmark Park in Pearl, the crowd will be large and the intensity high. USM comes in with a 14-9 record, 3-3 in the Sun Belt Conference. After a hot start to 2023, Ole Miss has slipped to 15-9 and is 0-6 in the SEC. The Rebels beat the Golden Eagles 11-5 in Oxford on March 7. The two schools clashed in a drama-filled Super Regional in Hattiesburg last year. … A few miles from the TeePee tonight, NCAA Division III rivals Belhaven and Millsaps will meet at the Majors’ Twenty Field in a game that will decide the Maloney Trophy Series winner for 2023. Millsaps is 14-11 with five straight wins, Belhaven 13-9 with a 10-game win streak. P.S. Poll news: William Carey University (23-6 with seven straight wins) is No. 20 in the current NAIA coaches poll. Pearl River Community College is No. 3 in the NJCAA Division II poll, with Meridian at 6 and Jones at 9. The Bobcats are in first place in the MACCC standings.

27 Mar

taking stock

They are dazed and confused at Mississippi State and Ole Miss, both still winless in the SEC at 0-6. Defending national champion Ole Miss — clearly missing injured ace Hunter Elliott — allowed 28 runs in getting swept at home by Florida over the weekend. The Rebels’ staff ERA is now 5.68. Not to be outdone, State yielded 55 runs to visiting Vanderbilt, jacking the Bulldogs’ ERA to 6.70. All three SWAC schools also were swept in conference series over the weekend. Jackson State is now 1-5 in the league, Mississippi Valley State and Alcorn State both 0-6. Alcorn, 1-18 overall after a 2-39 2022 season, seems to have fallen and can’t get up. On the positive side, Southern Miss beat Georgia Southern two out of three at Taylor Park and moved to 3-3 in the Sun Belt. The Golden Eagles play Ole Miss on Tuesday at Trustmark Park in Pearl. The hottest team in the state is NCAA Division III Belhaven, which has won 10 in a row and stands at 6-0 in the CCS. On Tuesday, the Blazers visit D-III rival Millsaps, coming off a sweep of SAA foe Sewanee and carrying a five-game win streak. In the NAIA ranks, William Carey scored 56 runs in a sweep of SSAC opponent Stillman. The Crusaders — led by Patrick Lee (.426, 11 homers, 47 RBIs) — are 23-6, 7-2 SSAC. Blue Mountain Christian won two of three from Faulkner and moved to 21-11, 6-6 SSAC. In D-II, Delta State and Mississippi College both came up clutch in the rubber game of their GSC series. Brendan McCauley’s two-run hit in the ninth inning propelled DSU (9-6 in the league) past Auburn-Montgomery, while Kolby McWilliams capped a rally by MC (6-9 GSC) at Lee with a seventh-inning RBI knock. NAIA Rust is 4-2 in the GCAC and 8-14 overall, while league rival Tougaloo is 4-21, 1-5. Tougaloo visits Jackson State on Wednesday. D-III MUW is 2-16. P.S. Jones College has won seven straight and moved to the top of the MACCC standings with a 9-1 league mark. The Bobcats, ranked 11th last week in the NJCAA Division II poll, are 24-6 overall. East Central Community College is second in the standings at 7-1, Pearl River third at 8-2.

14 May

coming events

The road to Lewiston, Idaho, will start in O’Fallon, Mo., for William Carey University, which has been assigned to the NAIA Tournament Opening Round hosted by fourth-ranked Central Methodist. Carey, champion of the SSAC Tournament, draws 19th-ranked Benedictine Mesa (Ariz.) to begin on May 17. The winner of the regional advances to the NAIA World Series in Lewiston. Tenth-ranked Loyola (New Orleans) is also hosting an Opening Round tourney, but Carey won’t get to make that short trip. Carey, as a 5-seed, beat the top-seeded Wolf Pack twice in the SSAC Tournament. Carey won the NAIA national title in 1969, one of only two championships by Mississippi four-year schools. (Delta State won the other.) The Crusaders’ Blake Freeman was named SSAC Tournament MVP after batting .474 with two homers (both in the title clincher) and was joined on the all-tournament team by pitcher Jorge Ramos and two-way star Sloan Dieter. … Jackson State, 24-0 and top seed from the East Division, will open SWAC Tournament play against West 4-seed Texas Southern on May 19 at Madison, Ala. Alcorn State, East 4-seed, gets West No. 1 Prairie View that same day. … Delta State heads to Pensacola, Fla., for the best-of-3 GSC Championship Series against West Florida starting on May 18. … MUW takes on Bryant & Stratton College-Albany (N.Y.) on May 17 in the first round of USCAA Small College World Series at DuBois, Pa. … And at Herring Park in Poplarville, the NJCAA D-II Region 23 Tournament, stacked with nationally ranked teams, begins May 17 with three games: Pearl River Community College vs. Hinds; Meridian vs. Itawamba; and LSU-Eunice vs. East Central.

19 Mar

not to be overlooked

The SEC openers for Mississippi State (vs. LSU) and Ole Miss (vs. Auburn) are the main course options this weekend, but there is a delectable side dish on the college menu. William Carey, off to a 15-2 start and ranked 14th in the NAIA coaches’ poll, opens conference play with a stern test. The Crusaders visit No. 6 Faulkner (10-1) in the Southern States Athletic Conference opener for both schools. Bobby Halford, in his 36th year as Carey coach, should get a good read on the strength of his 2021 team, which has played just one road game to date. Jay Johnston, at .417, leads five Crusaders regulars batting .300 or better. Chris Williams is at .333 with three home runs and 19 RBIs. Sloan Dieter has been a two-way factor with a team-high four homers and a 3-1, 1.99 ERA on his pitching ledger. Faulkner, idle since Feb. 27, is always a formidable foe. Under 12th-year coach Patrick McCarthy, a onetime Mississippi College grad assistant, the Eagles have been to the NAIA World Series eight of the last nine years, winning it all in 2013.

13 Mar

keeping watch

They met in Columbus on Tuesday, in a doubleheader at Columbus High’s field, and the box score listed the attendance as 0. Surely – hopefully? – there were a few fans watching, ’cause Blue Mountain College and Mississippi University for Women put on what had to be an entertaining show. The W – in its second season as a non-scholarship program – climbed out of a five-run hole to win the opener 6-5, and BMC overcame a late deficit to win Game 2 5-4. Heath Ford, from West Point, sparked the Owls in their win, going 2-for-4 with two RBIs. Latalo Newson, from Senatobia, homered, doubled and drove in two runs to fuel the NAIA Toppers in the second game. “Overall, playing two one-run, competitive games against a really good Blue Mountain team shows us that we’re heading in the right direction,” said MUW coach Matt Wolfenbarger, whose club is now 8-3, including two wins over Rust College, another NAIA school. BMC, in its 10th season, is also on the rise. Curt Fowler’s team (11-14-1) has posted back-to-back winning seasons. Last weekend, the Toppers beat Southern States Athletic Conference power Faulkner, No. 3 in NAIA, for the first time. They visit nationally ranked SSAC foe Middle Georgia State this weekend. Someone will be watching.