Tag Archives: NCBWA

12 Jun

hey now …

Brent Rooker was an All-Star for the Oakland A’s in 2023 and might be on that path again this season. The former Mississippi State standout had a star-spangled day at the plate on Wednesday, going 4-for-5 with two home runs, a double, three RBIs and three runs. In his final at-bat, he hit a drive that was caught at the warning track. (Not surprisingly, the lowly A’s lost the game to the Los Angeles Angels 6-5.) Rooker is hitting .276 with 15 bombs and 41 RBIs on the year; he ranks in the top 10 in the American League in homers, RBIs and slugging percentage. Over his last 20 games, he is at .380 with five homers and 17 runs knocked in. But it hasn’t been a streaky kind of season. “I’ve been able to maintain a level of consistency that maybe I haven’t in the past,” Rooker said in an mlb.com article. He batted .293 with 39 homers and 112 RBIs in 2024, winning a Silver Slugger but not making the All-Star Game. He hit .246 with 30 homers in 2023, his first season with the A’s. All-Star Game voting is under way on mlb.com; the game is July 15 in Atlanta. … Elsewhere in The Show, in his season debut with Toronto, Madison Central High alum Spencer Turnbull pitched two scoreless innings in middle relief and picked up the win as the surging Blue Jays beat St. Louis 5-2. It was his first MLB game since June of last year (see previous posts). P.S. Kudos to six players from Mississippi schools who made the NCBWA Division I All-America teams. Southern Miss’ Nick Monistere and J.B. Middleton (the state’s Ferriss Trophy winner) and MSU’s Ace Reese and Noah Sullivan were named to the first team, USM’s Colby Allen and Ole Miss’ Hunter Elliott to the third team.

17 Mar

poll watching

“What helps me as a baseball player is, before the game, knowing that I can affect the game in multiple ways — defensive side of the ball, stealing a bag, scoring runs, getting on base, not just focusing on hitting. I think whenever I go out there aggressively to be able to affect a game in so many different ways, I always like to say, ‘Count the positives.’ If I have more positives than negatives that day, I had a good day.” Those words were spoken by Corey Dickerson after a walk-off hit in a big league game some time back. One can imagine the former MLB outfielder from McComb delivering that same kind of message to his Jackson Academy players, who are off to an 11-2 start in Dickerson’s debut as head coach. The Raiders, who went 4-0 in last week’s Battle at the Beach, have bolted to No. 3 in MaxPreps Mississippi Top 25. Dickerson was a .280 career hitter in the majors, with over 1,000 hits, posted a .323 on-base percentage and won a Gold Glove. The Raiders are hitting .331 as a team with 61 stolen bases and a .963 fielding percentage. Foster Meacham is batting .475, one of three Raiders hitting .400 or better. … Magnolia Heights is No. 1 in the MaxPreps poll, followed by No. 2 Lewisburg, JA, Southeast Lauderdale at No. 4 and Purvis at 5. … Ole Miss (15-4) dropped from 13th to 19th in Baseball America’s new poll and is the only state school ranked. UM is No. 18 and Southern Miss (14-6) No. 19 in both the ESPN and d1baseball.com polls. The two meet Tuesday night (6 p.m.) at Trustmark in Pearl in what ought to be a spirited affair. The Rebels beat the Golden Eagles 15-8 in Oxford last month. … Pearl River Community College moved up a spot to No. 1 in the new NJCAA Division II poll. PRCC (22-4) swept Northwest 16-1 and 13-1 on Sunday, hitting seven homers and allowing just seven hits. Ethan Garner hit two bombs for the Wildcats. East Central dropped from No. 1 to fourth, Jones is sixth, Gulf Coast 21 and Holmes 24. … Millsaps College took two of three from NCAA Division III nationally ranked Center, beating the Colonels 10-4 on Sunday to improve to 13-5, 2-1 SAA. The Majors might crack the d3baseball.com poll this week. … Delta State, ranked 12th in the NCBWA D-II poll last week, is poised to move up at 19-6 and 12-3 Gulf South. Mississippi College, 17-9, 10-5 GSC, with 10 wins in its last 11 games, might crack the D-II Top 25 this week.

15 Jun

name-dropping

Ferriss Trophy winners were making news on Wednesday. The last two winners of Mississippi’s top college honor were named to the NCBWA All-America teams: Southern Miss’ Tanner Hall, the 2022 Ferriss recipient, was named to the first team — his second such honor (Collegiate Baseball) — and 2023 winner Kemp Alderman of Ole Miss made the second team. Hall was 12-4 with a 2.48 ERA for the Golden Eagles, who fell in the Hattiesburg Super Regional on Monday. Alderman hit .376 with 19 homers and 61 RBIs for the Rebels, the defending national champs who did not make the postseason this year. Meanwhile, ex-Mississippi State star Jake Mangum, the Ferriss winner in 2019 and ’16, enjoyed a big day for Triple-A Jacksonville (Miami system), going 4-for-6 with four RBIs as the Jumbo Shrimp swept a doubleheader from Memphis. The Jackson Prep product is batting .286. Worth noting: Up in the Cape Cod League, 2023 Ferriss finalist Hunter Hines of MSU went 2-for-4 with two RBIs in a win by Yarmouth-Dennis; Hines is batting .350 with a homer and six RBIs in five games in the summer league. And 2022 finalist Tim Elko, an Ole Miss alumnus now in pro ball, hit his league-leading 14th home run for Low-Class A Kannapolis (Chicago White Sox). P.S. Dakota Jordan, after an All-SEC Freshman season at State, is killing it in the New England Collegiate League. The Jackson Academy product is batting .444 (8-for-18, plus six walks) with five RBIs and nine runs in six games for Newport.