Tag Archives: Oxford Regional

07 Jun

something special

We don’t get to see this very often, two Mississippi schools squaring off in the postseason. Two days in a row is a lot to handle. Ole Miss and Southern Miss play today for the Oxford Regional championship. The noon game will be televised on ESPN2. Somebody’s season ends today at Swayze Field. Four years ago, in Hattiesburg in 2017, USM and Mississippi State squared off in a regional title game. USM fans cringe at the memory: State won 8-6, its second straight win that day over the Golden Eagles, who saw one of their best-ever seasons end in heartbreak. USM can deliver a similar blow today to the Rebels, the No. 12 national seed and once the nation’s top-ranked team. Facing elimination on Sunday night, the Eagles bucked up for a 10-7 win that had a lot of everything over 3 hours and 35 minutes: 20 hits, seven walks, three HBPs, three home runs, 17 strikeouts, two errors. Both teams got heroic pitching performances. UM’s Tyler Myers quelled the first-inning uprising that saw the Eagles turn a 4-0 deficit into a 7-4 lead. Myers went five innings, yielding two runs. Chandler Best came out of the bullpen to do damage control for USM in the wild first two innings, and Tanner Hall owned the day with five scoreless frames to finish off the Rebels. Before Sunday’s game, the last regional meeting between the two schools came in 2007, when Lance Lynn threw a two-hitter in UM’s 4-0 first-round win in Oxford. Lynn won’t be walking through that bullpen gate today. It’ll be interesting to see who does; the pitching staffs for both teams are stretched thin. But somebody will step up. Somebody will have to, and they’ll earn a place in Magnolia State lore. P.S. Props to Mississippi juco products Jase Dalton and Tyler Samaniego, who combined for 3 2/3 scoreless innings of relief in South Alabama’s win over Miami in the Gainesville Regional. The Jaguars are facing South Florida for the regional title. In the Ruston Regional, Kyle Crigger, an Itawamba CC alum, worked the last 4 1/3 innings in Louisiana Tech’s win over Alabama in an elimination game. The Bulldogs then lost to North Carolina State.

06 Jun

there and here

Bobby Bradley, the former Harrison Central High slugger, was back in the big leagues on Saturday and doubled in his only at-bat as a pinch hitter for Cleveland. The lefty-hitting first baseman/DH made his MLB debut in 2019 but didn’t get the call last season. Sent to Triple-A Columbus despite a strong spring, he was hitting .196 with nine homers (and a 36 percent strikeout rate) when the Indians decided to give him another look after axing Jake Bauers. Bradley told cleveland.com that he feels no pressure: “I get to settle in and get comfortable and play my game.” Known affectionately as “The Assassin” at Columbus, where he hit 33 homers in 2019, Bradley could give the Indians some needed thump if he can cut down on the strikeouts. He’ll probably be in the lineup today at Baltimore. … Madison Central product Spencer Turnbull has landed on the 10-day injured list with a forearm strain. He is 4-2, 2.88 ERA for Detroit; one of the wins was a no-hitter. … Ex-Mississippi State standout Brent Rooker hit his seventh homer of the season and is batting .238 for Triple-A St. Paul in Minnesota’s system. Rooker was in the big leagues briefly in April. … LeDarious Clark, the East Mississippi Community College alum and former Texas Rangers minor leaguer, has four homers and a .320 average in nine games in the independent Atlantic League, now one of MLB’s new partner leagues. … Joe Gray Jr., the former Hattiesburg High star who was once a prized prospect in Milwaukee’s system, appears to be figuring some things out at Low-A Carolina. He blasted his ninth homer on Saturday and is at .291 with 34 RBIs. He is only 21. … After suffering three straight soul-crushing postseason losses, Southern Miss bounced back with a vengeance in a 21-0 win over Southeast Missouri State in the Oxford Regional. That gives the Golden Eagles another shot at Florida State in an elimination game today. FSU beat USM 5-2 on Friday, then lost to Ole Miss Saturday. … Hail to the MHSAA champs: Madison Central polished off Northwest Rankin for the Class 6A title, joining Saltillo (5A), West Lauderdale (4A), Booneville (3A), Taylorsville (2A) and Tupelo Christian (1A) in the winners’ circle.

05 Jun

the other phase

South Alabama’s hitters did a number on Florida today in a jaw-dropping 19-1 victory that eliminated the Gators — once the nation’s No. 1 team — from the Gainesville Regional. Also due some major props is Miles Smith, a former Pearl River Community College standout from Laurel who pitched the first six innings and limited the Gators to one run on five hits with five strikeouts. Smith departed after the Jaguars scored 10 runs in the sixth inning to take a 14-1 lead. Smith (7-1 this season) won 15 games over his two seasons at PRCC, including a 9-3 mark on the 2019 club that went to the juco World Series. … While Reed Trimble and Christopher Sargent were fueling an eye-popping offensive assault by Southern Miss on Southeast Missouri State today in the Oxford Regional, Walker Powell was getting it done on the mound. Powell pitched six dominant innings, holding SEMO to four hits while fanning four in the Golden Eagles’ 21-0 win in an elimination game. Powell, C-USA’s pitcher of the year, improved to 10-2 on the year.

01 Jun

behold the power

Fear the Fighting Camels? Beware the ’Noles? If power is the key to winning these days, then the teams to watch in the Starkville and Oxford Regionals, respectively, are Campbell and Florida State. Campbell (35-16) has more total home runs (65) and the best homers-per-game average (1.27) of the four teams bound for Starkville. Matthew Christian leads the Camels with 16. Campbell pitchers also have done a good job of limiting homers, having yielded just 33. Samford (35-22), which plays Mississippi State in the first round, punched its ticket to the NCAAs with two huge homers in the ninth inning of the Southern Conference title game: a game-tying shot by Towns King and a walk-off bomb by Max Pinto. Sonny DiChiara has 16 of Samford’s 64. On the flip side, Samford pitchers have given up 70 homers. Logan Tanner (team-best 16 round-trippers) and the other State sluggers may be salivating over that stat. State (40-15) sits at 60 as a team, eight more than its pitchers have allowed. Another masher of note in that regional is Virginia Commonwealth’s Tyler Locklear, who has 16 bombs. The Rams (37-14) have allowed only 37 homers. … In Oxford, where the red cup crowd really digs the long ball, Florida State (30-22) comes in with 74 homers (1.42 per game, 18th in the nation). The Seminoles’ Mat Nelson is tied for the national lead with 22. FSU opens regional play against Southern Miss (37-19), which has belted 67 bombs, led by Reed Trimble with 14. Ole Miss (41-19) has slugged 75 homers (1.25 per game), led by Kevin Graham’s 14. Tim Elko, perhaps UM’s best power source, has 13 despite missing a big chunk of time with an injury. Rebels pitchers have allowed 65 homers, a relatively high number. Notably, UM’s opening opponent, Southeast Missouri State (30-20), is a relatively power-starved team with just 37 homers. Wade Strauss hit 14 of those.

31 May

who are those guys?

These aren’t household names – ballpark names? – that are coming to Oxford for the regional. Tennessee Tech, Missouri State, St. Louis. But they are hardly chumps. Tech has 48 wins and is ranked 25th by Baseball America. Missouri State is No. 23 and won the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament. St. Louis won the regular season and tourney titles in the Atlantic 10. Fourth-ranked (and national 4-seed) Ole Miss isn’t likely to coast through to the Super Regional round. The Rebels likely will face a stern test in Friday’s opener against St. Louis’ Miller Hogan, the A-10 pitcher of the year and a 10-game winner with strikeout stuff. Tech, a heavy-hitting club, brings the OVC player of the year: Kevin Strohschein (.406, 18 homers, 65 RBIs). Missouri State shortstop Jeremy Eierman is a highly regarded draft prospect. The SEC champion Rebels, 46-15 and a top 10 team most of the season, roll out an impressive crop of stars: Ryan Rolison, Ryan Olenek, Nick Fortes, Parker Caracci and those other guys in the bullpen. Yet the deciding factor for the Rebels might just be the crowds at Oxford-University Stadium/Swayze Field. “It’s going to be a rowdy, rowdy, rowdy group,” SLU coach Darin Hendrickson, who has been to Oxford before, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. P.S. Southern Miss, nationally ranked and a double champion in C-USA, got kind of a tough draw from the NCAA, being sent to the Fayetteville Regional at Baum Stadium, where the national 5-seed Arkansas Razorbacks are 30-3. The Hogs are 9-15 elsewhere. Baum Stadium is a homer-friendly park, and USM can play that game. Led by Matt Wallner, the Golden Eagles rank 15th nationally in homers. Of course, first-round foe Dallas Baptist ranks ninth and Arkansas third. Watch for bombs at the Baum. … There is an interesting subplot to watch in Mississippi State’s regional opener in Tallahassee, Fla.: Bulldogs ace Konnor Pilkington and Oklahoma’s Jake Irvin, the likely starters, were roomies last summer when they played for Team USA. “That’ll be a fun matchup for sure,” Irvin told newsok.com. OU outfielder Steele Walker, a top pro prospect, was also on that squad. Florida State, the host and the national 7-seed, will be a tough out at Howser Stadium. But MSU, the 2-seed in the regional, has played well the role of giant killer this season, going 9-1 against top 5 seeds Florida, Arkansas and Ole Miss.