Tag Archives: NJCAA poll

11 Mar

spotlight on …

Pearl River Community College has risen to No. 2 in the NJCAA Division II poll heading into its conference-opening doubleheader Saturday against Northwest at Poplarville. The Wildcats are 11-3, having last played last weekend, when Tate Parker’s walk-off homer beat Coastal Alabama-North. Parker, from Gulfport, leads PRCC’s potent lineup with a .426 average, six homers (tied for third nationally) and 19 RBIs. McComb’s Alex Perry is hitting .385 with five homers, and Oak Grove product Turner Swistak is 2-0 with a 0.64 ERA in four games, three starts. Northwest, not ranked, is 10-6 with six straight wins. Notable: Ryan Lee hit for the cycle in a game last week, reported to be the first time for a Rangers player since 2006. East Central is No. 5 in the national poll, Meridian No. 7, Northeast No. 15 and Jones No. 20. MACCC play starts this weekend.
Delta State has won seven straight, including a road victory against nationally ranked Southern Arkansas on Wednesday, and is 10-5 heading into a Gulf South Conference series vs. Lee University this weekend in Cleveland. DSU is 5-3 in the league. Chad Ragland is the reigning GSC player of the week; he hit .556 with a cycle in four games last week and went 2-for-5 with two RBIs in the win over SAU. Ragland is at .433 for the year for the NCAA Division II Statesmen.

14 Apr

poll positions

Finally, there is a new NJCAA Division II poll. Fittingly, Mississippi jucos, three of them, populate the top 20. Jones County Junior College, which has distanced itself from the field in the MACJC standings, is No. 4 in the national poll, the first one released since before the season began. JCJC is 33-3 and 16-2 after sweeping Pearl River Community College 20-1 and 8-3 on Wednesday, the day the poll came out. The Bobcats are one of the highest scoring teams in the country, led by Mason Irby, who leads the state with a .472 average and 45 RBIs. With seven homers, Irby trails only teammate Erick Hoard and PRCC’s Zack Clark, who have 11. Tanner Huddleston, a .425 hitter for JCJC, has driven in 44 runs and Hoard 42. The Bobcats’ Clint Sasser leads the state and ranks No. 2 nationally with 34 steals. Oh, and ace Mason Strickland is 6-0 with a 2.06 ERA. Meridian CC is ranked No. 7 and East Central is No. 20. They are in a pack of four schools sitting in a virtual tie for second place in the MACJC standings. The Eagles (27-7, 12-6) and Warriors (25-13, 13-7) split a twinbill in Decatur on Tuesday; Will Kennedy’s bases-clearing triple sparked the Warriors’ Game 2 win after they had blown a ninth-inning lead in the opener. Northwest, also 12-6 in the league, got some poll votes. The Rangers (20-12) had an eight-game win streak stopped by Dyersburg (Tenn.) State on Tuesday. Hinds, which was ranked No. 9 in the NJCAA preseason poll, started slowly but has picked it up of late. The Eagles (20-14, 12-6) swept Copian-Lincoln on Tuesday — with the aid of 11 errors. If the postseason started today, Northeast, Gulf Coast and Holmes would join Jones and the four second-place teams in the chase. But certainly, much could change between now and the start of the best-of-3 round on May 6.

24 Dec

no. 2 with a bullet

Hinds Community College will start the 2015 season where it finished 2014 – and that’s not a bad place to be. The Eagles, who finished runner-up in the NJCAA Division II World Series last season, are ranked No. 2 in the Collegiate Baseball preseason poll. No. 1 is Mesa (Ariz.), the team that beat Hinds in the title game. The Eagles have 11 NCAA Division I signees on their roster. They return the top five hitters from 2014, led by Luke Reynolds (.376), Marshall Boggs (.366) and Quade Smith (.331). Also back are home run leaders Chase Lunceford and Matt Jones, who blasted 10 apiece. Austin Sanders (8-2, 10 saves) returns on the mound, along with Randy Bell (9-4) and Casey Sutton (8-3). “We should be good. We should at least get back to the World Series,” Lunceford said in an interview last summer. “I know that’s tough to do, but we’ll have high expectations.” Hinds certainly is a team to watch, and the watch will start on Feb. 7, when the Eagles open against Mineral Area (Mo.) at Moss Field in Raymond. … East Mississippi was No. 18 in the preseason poll and Northwest checked in at No. 20.