Tag Archives: Ole Miss

25 May

games of throne

It’s championship Sunday, and look who’s here. Though nothing can be taken for granted in tournament play, it’s no surprise, really, that Southern Miss has reached the Sun Belt Conference title game. The Golden Eagles, two-time defending champs, came in as the No. 2 seed with a 15-game win streak. They’ll meet Coastal Carolina, the top seed, today (1 p.m.) in Montgomery, Ala. In Hoover, Ala., Ole Miss is something of an interloper in the SEC championship match. The Rebels came in as the seventh seed (16-14 in the league) and were a little wobbly down the stretch of the regular season, going 14-11 after a hot start that had lifted them into the national top 10. They’ll play 4-seed Vanderbilt today (noon). Ole Miss (40-18), the 2022 national champ, last won the SEC tourney in 2018, its third crown. To get to this final, the Rebels beat Florida, Arkansas and No. 1-ranked LSU, 2-0 on Saturday. The Rebels won two of three from Vanderbilt in Oxford this season. Vandy (41-16) won the SEC Tournament in 2023, its fourth league title. The Commodores, typically loaded with MLB-caliber arms, have won two national titles. A pick to click for UM: Will Furniss. He hit a big homer against LSU, his 10th of the year, and is batting .288 with 40 RBIs. For Vandy, it’s freshman Brodie Johnston, who has 12 homers, 51 RBIs, 14 doubles and a .502 slugging average. In the Sun Belt finale, USM (44-13, 18 straight wins) gets a Coastal Carolina club that is also sizzling hot. The Chanticleers are 47-11 with 17 straight wins. The teams did not meet in the SBC regular season; USM leads the all-time series 5-2. A key player for USM figures to be Jake Cook, former Madison Central High star who is hitting .357 with 54 runs and 30 RBIs. For Coastal, which won the national title in 2016, the pick to click is Sebastian Alexander, a .302 hitter with nine homers and 25 steals. P.S. Belhaven ran into a buzzsaw in its NCAA Division III super regional. The Blazers, finishing 34-15, were blasted two straight, 17-3 Friday and 14-1 Saturday, at No. 2-ranked Denison (Ohio). … East Central Community College, behind the pitching of Chris Bilingsley and the power of Jayden Adcox, won its NJCAA Division II World Series opener 6-5 Saturday against Catawba Valley. Pearl River CC, which had a first-round bye in Enid, Okla., plays its opener today against Kellogg (Mich.).

21 May

together again

MACCC powerhouses Pearl River Community College and East Central CC, who just met last week in a three-game showdown for the Region 23 crown, could collide again in the NJCAA Division II World Series in Enid, Okla. PRCC is the No. 2 seed, while ECCC is seeded sixth on the same side of the bracket in the 12-team, double-elimination event. PRCC (50-8) earned the automatic bid by winning the region title in a winner-take-all game Saturday. ECCC (42-14) got one of the two at-large bids and is in the field for the third straight year. PRCC won the national in 2022. ECCC will play Catawba Valley on Saturday. PRCC gets a first-round bye before taking on the winner of the Southeastern Iowa-Kellogg contest on Sunday. Pearl River leads the nation in staff ERA and ranks among the leaders in home runs, a pretty sweet combo. The big mashers for the Wildcats include Caston Thompson (13 homers, .372 average), Jackson Hood (12 homers, .344) and Topher Jones (10 homers, .377). The twin aces are Jacob Johnson (12-1, 1.62 ERA) and K.K. Clark (10-2, 1.75). Johnson shut out ECCC in the deciding game of the region title series. East Central’s top hitters are Barret Rodgers (.359) and Pablo Roque (.352, seven homers), and the Warriors’ ace is Bryson Goff (9-1, 2.81). P.S. In MLB, former Jackson Prep standout Will Warren, now with the New York Yankees, struck out 10 batters in 5 2/3 shutout innings to beat the Rangers and run his record to 3-2. … Ole Miss alum Nick Fortes hit his first homer of 2025, accounting for Miami’s only run in a 14-1 loss to the Chicago Cubs. … Mississippi State product J.T. Ginn has gone back on the injured list for the A’s after making one rocky start in his first game off the IL.

18 May

there and here

MLB’s “rivalry weekend” featured a St. Louis-Kansas City series at Kauffman Stadium, where the Royals honored their 1985 and 2015 World Series championship clubs. There were Mississippi natives on both of those teams: Greenville’s Frank White was a slick-fielding, power-hitting second baseman for the ’85 Royals, who beat St. Louis in seven games in the memorable I-40 Series, and McComb’s Jarrod Dyson was a dash-fast outfielder for the ’15 team, which was managed by former Jackson Mets catcher Ned Yost. There are two state natives on the current Royals: Crystal Springs’ Hunter Renfroe and Tupelo’s Chris Stratton, both Mississippi State alums. … Former Ole Miss star Tim Elko had a nice debut in Chicago’s Crosstown Classic, hitting his second homer for the White Sox in their loss Saturday to the Cubs at Wrigley Field. UM product Drew Pomeranz, a Cubs reliever, did not work in the first two games of that series. … Ex-MSU star Nathaniel Lowe homered for Washington in its win over beltway rival Baltimore on Friday, then drove in two more runs in a win on Saturday in the slumping Orioles’ first game after manager Brandon Hyde’s dismissal. … Seedings and brackets are set for this week’s NCAA Division I tournaments. Mississippi State is seeded 11th in the SEC field and opens with Texas A&M in an elimination game on Tuesday at Hoover, Ala., while Ole Miss, seeded seventh, plays Wednesday against the Florida-South Carolina winner. Southern Miss is the 2-seed in the Sun Belt and will play on Wednesday at Montgomery, Ala. Jackson State is seeded sixth in the SWAC Tournament and draws Alabama State on Wednesday at Birmingham’s historic Rickwood Field. … The season is over for Delta State and Millsaps College, both of which lost elimination games in NCAA regional play on Saturday. Both were regular season champions in their respective conferences. … Pearl River Community College won the NJCAA Region 23 championship on Saturday with a 10-0 win over East Central CC in the deciding Game 3. Jacob Johnson (12-1) threw a brilliant seven innings. The No. 2-ranked Wildcats (50-8) are off to the Junior College World Series in Enid, Okla. … The MHSAA championship matchups are (almost) set: In Class 7A, it’s Madison Central-Brandon; in 6A, Saltillo-George County; in 5A Lafayette-South Jones; in 4A, it’s Purvis vs. the West Lauderdale-Newton winner from today; in 3A, Mooreville-Seminary; in 2A, East Union-Clarkdale; and in 1A West Union-Taylorsville. The seven best-of-3 series begin this week at Trustmark Park in Pearl.

14 May

three things

1 — William Carey University, 10th-ranked in NAIA, saw its season end on Tuesday with a 16-11 loss to Oklahoma Wesleyan in an elimination game in the Hattiesburg regional. A nine-run seventh inning doomed the Crusaders, who committed four errors and walked 11 batters in the game. Carey (38-14) was outscored 26-17 in its two losses. Oklahoma Wesleyan plays Indiana Southeast today with the winner then meeting British Columbia in the championship round.
2 — The Mississippi Mud Monsters finally got back on the field for the second game of their inaugural season, but the independent club fell to Gateway 8-5 at Trustmark Park. Newly activated Rodney Theopile, a 6-foot-6 Nicaragua native, pitched four strong innings before the bullpen faltered in a seven-run fifth. Kyle Booker, former DeSoto Central High star, went 3-for-4 with three RBIs for the Mud Monsters (1-1). Game 2 of the Gateway series is tonight in Pearl.
3 — Ryan Rolison, a 2018 first-round draftee, made his big league debut and Kendall Graveman, a veteran big leaguer who missed 2024 after arm surgery, made his season debut. Ole Miss alum Rolison, who has made 95 minor league appearances, got the last out for Colorado in a 4-1 loss at Texas. Graveman, ex-Mississippi State standout, pitched a scoreless inning for Arizona in a 10-6 loss at San Francisco.
P.S. In case you somehow missed it: Former Mississippi Braves star Ronald Acuna homered in his first rehab game for Atlanta’s Florida Complex League team. Former National League MVP Acuna has been out since last May because of a knee injury. On the undercard in that FCL game, Southern Miss product Dalton McIntyre went 1-for-3 with an RBI for the FCL Braves; he was a 19th-round pick last summer.

13 May

take it on the run

While no one is conjuring up images of Billy Hamilton circa 2012, speed is still a tool that many Magnolia State products bring to the game. To wit: Seven different Mississippians in the minors rank among the stolen base leaders in their respective leagues. Emaarion Boyd, former South Panola High star, is tied for second in the High-Class A Midwest League with 15 bags for Beloit in the Miami system. Boyd, hitting just .225 this year, has 106 steals all told in 222 pro games. Konnor Griffin and Dakota Jordan, both former Gatorade players of the year in the state and 2024 draftees, have 13 steals apiece, both playing in Low-A ball. Patrick Lee, a well-traveled former William Carey University standout from Pascagoula, has 11 steals in Low-A ball this year and 46 in two minor league seasons. In the Double-A Southern League, Cooper Pratt — another Gatorade POY out of Magnolia Heights — and Southern Miss alum Matthew Etzel are tied for fifth in the league with 10 steals each. Ex-Ole Miss star and Decatur native Kemp Alderman, also in the SL, has eight steals. Braden Montgomery, still another Gatorade POY from Madison Central, has swiped seven bases over two levels of A-ball, already surpassing his college season-high. In the big leagues, the leading Mississippian is Jake Mangum, the former Jackson Prep and Mississippi State star — on the injured list since April 24 — who has eight steals for Miami. Mangum totaled 81 steals over five minor league campaigns. The standard for all base stealers in the minors was set by Hamilton, the ex-big leaguer out of Taylorsville High. He nabbed 155 bags in 2012 in the Cincinnati system, a record that’ll never be broken. He stole 326 bases in his MLB career and is still out there performing thievery at age 34, with seven steals in 10 games in the Mexican League.

13 May

smooth move

The Chicago Cubs’ trade for Drew Pomeranz late last month is beginning to look like a very shrewd deal. The veteran left-hander out of Ole Miss has yet to allow a run in eight appearances out of the bullpen for the first-place Cubs, and on Monday night, the 6-foot-5 “Big Smooth” recorded his first MLB save in five years. The 36-year-old Pomeranz worked the ninth in a 5-2 win against Miami at Wrigley Field, allowing one hit and fanning two. “(S)ince we got Drew, he’s just been pounding the zone,” Chicago manager Craig Counsell told mlb.com. “That’s probably what you like best is, it’s just a lot of strikes.” Pomeranz has struck out eight and walked just two in 7 2/3 innings. More closing opportunities may be in his future. The Cubs traded with San Diego to acquire Pomeranz, who was pitching in the minors, and he debuted on April 25, his first MLB game since 2021. A former first-round pick (in 2010) who has been a World Series champ and an All-Star, he had been battling injury issues since that time. “I’m just happy to be here. Literally, it feels like the first time all over again,” Pomeranz said when he joined the Cubs. A starter early in his pro career, he has now appeared in 297 games with a 48-58 record, 10 saves and a 3.88 ERA. P.S. Mississippi State alum Kendall Graveman has been activated from the IL by Arizona; the veteran pitcher missed all of 2024 after arm surgery. … Ex-Mississippi College star Blaine Crim was returned to Triple-A Round Rock by Texas; he went 0-for-11 during his brief call-up. … Brandon Woodruff, former MSU standout from Wheeler, has been shut down on his rehab assignment because of an ankle injury. The erstwhile Milwaukee ace has been out since mid-2023 following an arm injury and surgery. … Four Mississippi products appear in MLB Pipeline’s refreshed Top 100 minor league prospects list: Konnor Griffin (Pittsburgh system) at No. 37, Braden Montgomery (White Sox) No. 38, Cooper Pratt (Milwaukee) No. 50 and Jurrangelo Cijntje (Seattle) No. 92.

11 May

a special day

Not much beats belting a home run for your first major league hit. Unless it’s doing it on Mother’s Day, with your mom in the stadium. Against a former Cy Young Award winner. To win the game. The legend of Tim Elko grew a little larger Sunday when the ex-Ole Miss star, in his second game with the Chicago White Sox, hit a three-run homer off Miami’s Sandy Alcantara. The sixth-inning shot, a 381-footer with the traditional pink bat, put the White Sox ahead and they held on for a 4-2 win at Rate Field. Homers are kind of a thing for Elko, who hit 46 at Ole Miss –including some huge ones during the Rebels’ 2022 run to the national title — and another 61 in the minors before his Saturday call-up. Power is something the lowly ChiSox have been sorely lacking. … Former Mississippi State star Nathaniel Lowe also homered with the pink bat Sunday, his seventh of the season accounting for Washington’s only run in a 6-1 loss to St. Louis. … Mississippi natives Fred Lewis and Bill Hall hit two of MLB’s most famous Mother’s Day homers. Lewis, a Stone County High and Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College alum, hit for the cycle on Mother’s Day 2007. He was making just his fourth career start when he went 5-for-6 for San Francisco that day; the homer was the first of his career. Nettleton’s Hall became a Brewers legend on May 14, 2006, when he hit a walk-off homer in the 10th inning to beat the New York Mets at Milwaukee’s Miller Park. With his mother in the stands, Hall swung the special pink bat in the first year that those were used in MLB. Hall’s blast came against Chad Bradford, the former Hinds Community College and Southern Miss standout who allowed only that one homer all season.

11 May

show time — at last

Seven years after he was drafted in the first round by Colorado, former Ole Miss star Ryan Rolison has been summoned to the big leagues. The 27-year-old lefty is 3-1 with a 3.72 ERA at Triple-A Albuquerque, working mostly out of the bullpen. Having battled injuries much of his pro career, the 6-foot-2 Rolison has 4.50 career ERA in 95 games covering 308 1/3 innings with 310 strikeouts. The Tennessee native won 16 games in his two years at Ole Miss. The Rockies, off to a 6-33 start, appear fairly desperate for pitching help. They surrendered 21 runs to San Diego on Saturday at Coors Field and have an MLB-worst 5.89 ERA entering play today. … Rolison is the fourth Ole Miss alum to get a big league call this season, following Doug Nikhazy, Gunnar Hoglund and Tim Elko.

11 May

three stars

Ryan McPherson: The Mississippi State freshman right-hander entered Saturday’s game in the ninth inning with the tying and go-ahead runs on base, got a double-play ball and another ground-ball out to preserve the Bulldogs’ 6-5 win over Ole Miss in the rubber game of the series in Starkville. It was the second save of the season for McPherson. State (31-20, 12-15 SEC) improved to 6-1 under interim coach Justin Parker. Nationally ranked Ole Miss is 34-17, 14-13.
Drey Barrett: The Southern Miss freshman third baseman doubled, tripled and drove in four runs as the Golden Eagles won their 11th straight game, whipping Louisiana-Lafayette 15-5 in Hattiesburg. Barrett is hitting .261 with 27 RBIs on the season for USM (37-13, 20-6 Sun Belt)
Jacob Keys: The Pearl River Community College sophomore catcher, from Brandon via USM, hit a grand slam and knocked in five runs all told as the Wildcats (48-7) routed Northeast 17-2 in the Poplarville bracket and advanced to the NJCAA Division II Region 23 Championship Series against East Central.
Worth noting: Ole Miss product Tim Elko became the fifth Mississippian (native or school alum) to debut in the big leagues this season. The Chicago White Sox broadcasting crew sung the praises of Elko’s storybook career in Oxford, interviewed his parents in the Rate Field seats and played a video clip of his Triple-A manager, a very emotional Sergio Santos, informing Elko of his call-up. He played first base and went 0-for-3 in a 3-1 loss to Miami. … Ex-State standout Brent Rooker hit his 10th homer of the year — 89th career — as the A’s took down the New York Yankees 11-7. … Jurrangelo Cijntje, the switch-pitcher out of MSU, won his second straight start for High-Class A Everett (Seattle system), allowing one run in five innings vs. Tri-City. … Former Mississippi Braves star C.J. Alexander hit for the cycle, including his eighth homer, for Triple-A Las Vegas (A’s system). … Rhodes was declared the Southern Athletic Association Tournament champion as rain washed out Saturday’s schedule at Millsaps’ Twenty Field. Rhodes went 2-0 with wins over Millsaps and Centre, who were set to play a losers bracket game. Millsaps, SAA regular season champion, is hopeful of an NCAA Division III regional bid.

10 May

sock for sox?

After wearing out Triple-A pitching for over a month, Tim Elko is getting an opportunity in the big leagues. The Chicago White Sox reportedly will call up the former Ole Miss standout prior to Saturday’s game against Miami at Rate Field. Elko was hitting .348 with 10 homers at Charlotte. The 26-year-old first baseman/DH carries a .293 career average with 61 homers in 325 minor league games since the ChiSox drafted him in the 10th round in 2022. He hit 46 homers at Ole Miss over his five seasons, capping his career with a College World Series championship. The White Sox, coming off an awful 2024 season (40-121, worst in the modern era), are again at the bottom of the American League at 10-28; they are 29th in MLB in hitting, 28th in scoring and tied for 27th in home runs. Their hitting coach is Louisville native and ex-big leaguer Marcus Thames, who is not to blame for the lack of talent on the roster.