Pearl River Community College Archives - Page 3 of 10

10 Feb

tagging up

Bradley Pelle and his Millsaps College teammates hit the ground swinging on Friday. The NCAA Division III Majors opened their season with an 8-7, 17-8 sweep at LeTourneau (Texas). Pelle went 6-for-8 with three RBIs and six runs to pace the Millsaps attack. Jim Page, a recent Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame inductee, now has 839 wins over his 36 seasons. … Elsewhere in the small college ranks: Mississippi College (4-2) blasted visiting Miles 6-0 and 21-5 Friday in Clinton. J.T. Vance drove in seven runs and Cole Drake six in Game 2. Vance, a transfer from state champion East Central Community College, leads the Division II Choctaws with a .409 average. … Delta State, which yielded 32 runs in a 1-2 start against Harding last weekend, beat host Spring Hill (Ala.) 6-0 behind Drake Fontenot’s pitching and homers by Hayden Cooper and Taylor Woodcock in the opener of a Friday twinbill. The D-II Statesmen lost Game 2 9-5. … William Carey University, ranked No. 4 in NAIA, improved to 3-2 with a 6-5 win over Talladega in Hattiesburg. Preston Ratliff’s eighth-inning sac fly was the game-winner. … NAIA Blue Mountain Christian is off to a 5-1 start, led by Chris Smith, who’s hitting .556 with eight RBIs and four runs. … Belhaven dropped a pair of one-run games (to Hendrix and Westminster) at Conway, Ark., in new coach Andrew Gipson’s debut. Noah Foster was 4-for-9 in the two games for the D-III Blazers. … Rust College, defending regular season champ in the GCAC, is 0-7 after a 17-0 loss to Jarvis Christian. Jalin Thomas, an NAIA honorable mention All-America pick last year, has not played for the Bearcats. … Tougaloo, also a GCAC member, is 0-3 heading into weekend games against Tuskegee. The Bulldogs visit Blue Mountain on Tuesday. … Southeastern Baptist (of Laurel) lost its first two games last week at Southern-New Orleans, which is playing its inaugural season. … MUW opens Feb. 16 at Huntingdon (Ala.). P.S. Third-ranked Pearl River Community College (6-1) swept Baton Rouge 10-0 and 3-0 on Friday and made ESPN’s Top 10 plays. The Wildcats’ highlighted double play was started by second baseman Jeff Ince, who made a diving stop, then fed shortstop Creek Robertson, who fired to first baseman Hollis Porter, who scooped a low throw. Ince also hit a homer Friday and Porter belted a pair.

10 Aug

in good time

Bryson Ware, former Germantown High All-Stater, started slowly at Auburn but erupted as a senior in 2023 to hit a school-record 24 home runs and earn second-team All-SEC laurels. Similarly, Ware mustered just two singles in the first 28 plate appearances of his pro career before smashing a ninth-inning home run on Wednesday for Clearwater, Philadelphia’s Low-Class A affiliate. The 6-foot-2, 211-pound Ware was an eighth-round draft pick by the Phillies last month and debuted in the rookie Florida Complex League, going 2-for-16 before getting a promotion earlier this week. (Among his teammates on what is an outstanding Threshers club — 69-34 overall in the Florida State League — is former South Panola High star Emaarion Boyd, a second-year pro. Boyd is batting .277 with 47 steals.) Ware began his college career at Pearl River Community College, where he batted .321 with five homers in 16 games in the COVID-shortened 2020 season. He signed with Auburn but didn’t have a big impact his first two years on The Plains. He retooled his swing after the 2022 season, per a story on auburntigers.com, and won the third base job entering the 2023 season. “He’s stayed in the fight,” Auburn coach Butch Thompson, a fellow Mississippian, said back in the spring. Ware hit .350, drove in 63 runs, scored 66 and helped steer the Tigers into the NCAAs for the second straight season. … Ex-Mississippi State star Dakota Hudson picked up his second win in as many starts since returning to St. Louis’ rotation. The right-hander went five innings, allowing two homers to Jose Siri and three runs all told, as the Cardinals beat Tampa Bay 6-4. Hudson beat Minnesota, another playoff contender, in his previous start; he is 3-0 with a 4.31 ERA on the season.

19 Jul

random numbers

7 — Austin Riley’s career-high RBI total from Tuesday night’s game, which Atlanta lost 16-13 at home to Arizona. DeSoto Central High product Riley hit two home runs — both go-ahead bombs — and now has 18 on the year with 52 RBIs.
3 — Hits by Tim Anderson in the Chicago White Sox’s 11-10 loss to the New York Mets. The ex-East Central Community College standout might finally be heating up. With seven hits in his last four games, he has lifted his average to .234. (He did, however, make the last out of the game with the go-ahead run at second base.)
197 — Total runs scored in MLB games on Tuesday, a season-high; there were four games in which both teams scored double-digits, a modern era record. Riley scored three of those runs, Anderson two and Nathaniel Lowe, Mississippi State alum now with Texas, scored once. No other Mississippians contributed a run.
1.54 — Tyler Stuart’s ERA, which — as of Tuesday a.m. — led all qualified minor leaguers, per mlb.com. The ex-Southern Miss star, a 2022 draftee by the Mets, was 4-0, 1.55, at High-Class A Brooklyn and allowed one run in six innings in his Double-A debut for Binghamton last Saturday. The 6-foot-9 Stuart pitched mostly in relief in two seasons at USM. The Mets made him a starter this spring. “I feel like I get better as the game goes on,” he said in an mlb.com piece.
8 — Wins by Derek Diamond, the former Ole Miss standout now at Low-A Bradenton in Pittsburgh’s system. The right-hander, a 2022 draftee, threw seven innings on Tuesday, allowing four hits, a walk and a lone run to beat Fort Myers 5-2. He is 8-3 with a 3.98.
6 — Appearances in the Florida Complex League by Colby White, who is on a rehab assignment with Tampa Bay. White, an ex-MSU star, blew through four levels of the minors in 2021 (4-3, 11 saves, 1.44 ERA all told) and went to spring training with the Rays in 2022 before an arm injury cost him the entire year. He has a 1.59 ERA in the FCL this season and may be close to making his big league debut.
16 — Number of 2023 Pearl River Community College players bound for four-year schools this fall. It’s a program record, according to a release from the school. Of note: Gabe Broadus and Landen Payne are USM signees, Will Passeau is off to MSU, Tristan Hickman to Delta State, Blaise Breerwood to Mississippi College, Bobby Magee to William Carey and Alex Perry to Tennessee. PRCC won the NJCAA Division II national title in 2022 and was the preseason No. 1 this year.

11 Jul

feeling a draft

Day 2 of the MLB draft saw eight players from Mississippi selected, joining the three picked during Rounds 1-2 on Sunday. Four from Southern Miss were picked: Tanner Hall (fourth round, Minnesota), Justin Storm (seventh, Miami), Dustin Dickerson (eighth, Kansas City) and Matthew Etzel (10th, Baltimore). Calvin Harris (fourth, Chicago White Sox) and Jack Dougherty (ninth, Minnesota) were plucked from Ole Miss, and Cade Smith (sixth, New York Yankees) from Mississippi State. Cooper Pratt, Magnolia Heights Academy grad, is the lone high school player drafted to date (sixth, Milwaukee). Former Germantown High and Pearl River Community College star Bryson Ware was picked in the eighth round out of Auburn by Philadelphia. Rounds 11-20 are today. … On Sunday, Ole Miss’ Jacob Gonzalez was the 15th overall selection by the White Sox. Rebels outfielder Kemp Alderman (second, Miami) and MSU outfielder Colton Ledbetter (second, Tampa Bay) also were picked on Sunday. Hurston Waldrep, who pitched at USM in 2022 and at Florida this past season, went to Atlanta in the first round, 24th overall.

19 Jun

college stuff

After winning 320 games and guiding four teams into the NCAA Tournament at Southeastern Louisiana, Matt Riser will tackle a new challenge at Memphis. The Picayune native and former Pearl River Community College standout was announced as the Tigers’ new coach on Sunday. Riser spent 15 years at SLU, the Hammond-based school that plays in the Southland Conference. Memphis plays in the American Athletic Conference. Riser was an All-State player at PRCC in 2003 and ’04, batting .376 as a sophomore on the Wildcats’ state title team. He finished his playing career at Tulane and began his coaching career as an assistant at SLU. Memphis finished 29-28 in 2023 under first-year coach Kerrick Jackson, who moved on to Missouri. Memphis had not had a winning full season since 2017. The current roster includes a handful of Mississippi connections, notably Dalton Kendrick (Hernando), who had 12 saves in 2023. … In the College World Series, Hurston Waldrep — former Southern Miss pitcher — got the win for Florida against Oral Roberts in a winners bracket game on Sunday. Waldrep worked six innings and allowed a lone run with 12 strikeouts in the Gators’ 5-4 victory. Today in Omaha, Madison Central alum Braden Montgomery and the Stanford Cardinal meet Tennessee in an elimination game. Montgomery, a DH/pitcher, was 0-for-2 with a walk in a loss to Wake Forest on Saturday. Ex-DeSoto Central star Kyle Booker is a reserve outfielder on Tennessee’s roster; he hit .236 in 28 games this season. … There are seven Mississippi college alumni on the rosters for the inaugural HBCU Swingman Classic. Jackson State’s Ty Hill — a Ferriss Trophy finalist this year — is joined by teammates Jatavis Melton, Jesse Caver and Erik Gonzalez. Narvin Booker and Victor Figueroa from Mississippi Valley State and Kewan Braziel from Alcorn State are also among the invitees for the event, which was initiated by Ken Griffey, Jr. Two squads will play a game on July 7 at Seattle’s T-Mobile Park, site of MLB’s All-Star Game on July 11. P.S. Justin Parker, previously at South Carolina, will be hired as Mississippi State’s new pitching coach, according to various reports.

15 May

heavyweight class

To win the state championship this season, East Central Community College had to navigate a 28-game gauntlet of nationally ranked teams and longtime rivals. Now the going really gets tough.
Five of the top 14 teams, including Nos. 1, 3 and 4, in the NJCAA Division II poll are gathered in Eunice, La., this week to determine the Region 23 champion in a six-team, double-elimination event that figures to be a tooth-and-nail battle.
The field includes the defending national champion, third-ranked Pearl River Community College, and seven-time national champion LSU-Eunice, the nation’s top-ranked team. Also in the tourney are four other Mississippi schools: No. 4 Meridian, No. 8 East Central, No. 14 Itawamba and Northeast, which just missed a Top 20 ranking. The survivor of the Region 23 Tournament, which starts today, gets a berth in the Division II World Series in Enid, Okla.
“That’s it, that’s the goal,” said East Central coach Neal Holliman, who has won four Mississippi titles but has yet to claim a region crown or juco world series berth in 17 years in Decatur.
The Warriors (33-16), who got a bye into the region field, are rested and as ready as they can be for the challenge ahead, Holliman said.
“To win the regular season championship in our league (the MACCC), that might be tougher than winning a tournament championship,” he said. “The regular season is like a two-month tournament. Playing two double-headers every week, it wears and tears on your guys. We’re very proud to have come through.”
“It’s an incredible accomplishment to say that you’ve survived and made it to the regional,” said Pearl River coach Michael Avalon, whose 2022 team also survived the regional and then won the national title in Enid, just the second by a Mississippi juco.
Holliman had high expectations for this year’s East Central team, which returned the likes of Eli Collins, Leighton Jenkins and Grant Edwards from a 30-win club in 2022.
“We felt like we’d be pretty productive,” the coach said. “You never say, ‘Oh, this team is gonna win a championship,’ even though that’s always the goal. But we felt we had a good group and had a chance to do productive things.”
Things started slowly. On March 7, before conference play began, the Warriors’ record was 8-10.
“That surprised us a little,” Holliman said. “We weren’t playing bad. It wasn’t the Bad News Bears out there, but we weren’t executing in any phase like we were capable of. We have some players with a lot of versatility, and we were trying to find the best formula to have the best team, where everybody fits. Once we got settled into our roles, we took off.”
The Warriors went 23-5 in the league. They swept nine league doubleheaders and split the other five. They had a nine-game win streak and two five-game streaks. They clinched the championship on April 28, the last day of the regular season, by beating East Mississippi in the opener of a twinbill.
They haven’t played a game since. The other Mississippi teams in the region field got there by winning a best-of-3 play-in series. East Central has spent its off time working out and playing intrasquad games. “Our goal for this time was to have the guys prepared and hungry but rested,” Holliman said.
Collins, a Southern Miss signee from Laurel, was a sparkplug for the Warriors, batting .424, driving in 51 runs, scoring 66 and stealing 27 bases. Jenkins, a North Alabama commit from Collinsville, hit .355. Mo Little, a freshman from Brandon, supplied 10 homers and 65 RBIs while batting .350, and Ramie Harrison, from Philadelphia, hit .358.
Edwards, a New Orleans signee, was a whirlwind on the mound, going 4-0 with a 3.38 ERA, three saves and 57 strikeouts in 42 2/3 innings. Luke Cooley, from Waynesboro, went 5-1, and David Burton, from Decatur, posted five saves.
“We’re not a one-dimensional club. To go 23-5, you can’t be one-dimensional,” Holliman said.
There is a bundle of talented players in the regional, and pro and college scouts will be there to watch. LSU-E has its usual array of stars, and the Mississippi contingent will roll out several players who rank among the national leaders in various categories: ICC’s Will Verdung (.402, 16 homers); Meridian’s Dalton McIntyre (.462, 33 steals); Pearl River’s Alex Perry (.377, 62 runs); Northeast’s Khi Holiday (.363, 76 runs); Meridian’s Cole Boswell (11-0, 2.60); Pearl River’s Cooper Cooksey (9-0, 1.26); and Northeast’s Matthew Bullard (9-0).
“It’s six good teams,” Holliman said. “Eunice has a great program. All the Mississippi schools have faced good competition all year. It’ll just depend on who plays best that week and executes in the crucial moments.”
First-round games at Bengal Stadium
Meridian-Pearl River, noon
LSU-Eunice–Northeast, 3:30 p.m.
East Central-Itawamba, 7 p.m.

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.

22 Mar

rising to top

Pearl River Community College has the higher national ranking and the longer winning streak, but Jones College is keeping pace in the MACCC standings — and owns a win over the No. 2 Wildcats. Jones, ranked 11th in this week’s NJCAA Division II poll, improved to 7-1 in conference and 22-6 overall with a fairly dominant sweep against Copiah-Lincoln on Tuesday. PRCC (26-4) is also 7-1 in the league following a pair of comeback wins against fifth-ranked Meridian (18-8, 4-4). At Ellisville, the Bobcats got a home run from Madison Central High alum Gatlin Sanders and a strong pitching performance from Ovett’s Dalton Tanner to beat Co-Lin 11-1 in the opener of their twinbill. Drew Druckenmiller fired a seven-inning shutout in the 3-0 Game 2 win. At Poplarville, PRCC rallied from 3-1 down in Game 1, scoring the go-ahead run on a knock by Jackson Academy product Parker Ryan en route to a 7-3 victory. The Wildcats trailed most of Game 2 but won it 7-6 on a two-run walk-off hit by Alex Perry, former North Pike standout, current MACCC batter of the week. “Every time out is a dogfight,” Pearl River coach Michael Avalon said in a school release. PRCC has won seven straight games, Jones five in a row. Jones beat PRCC 8-5 in a non-league contest in Ellisville on March 1. The two will meet again in late April. … Sitting in a tie for third place in the MACCC are Northeast and East Central, both 5-1, neither ranked in the national poll.

18 Mar

hot spots

As the junior college season begins to warm, the hot spots for today are Poplarville and Perkinston. Pearl River Community College, tied for second in this week’s NJCAA Division II poll, hosts Mississippi Delta in a doubleheader showdown of 3-1 conference teams. PRCC, ranked No. 1 in preseason, is 22-4 and 10-2 at home. The visiting Trojans are 7-12-1 overall but have beaten Mississippi Gulf Coast and East Mississippi (twice) in league play. Gulf Coast, 2-2 in the MACCC, welcomes Itawamba (3-1) in another key matchup. No. 6 Meridian, also 3-1, hosts 0-4 Holmes and 13th-ranked Jones (3-1) is at East Mississippi (1-3). Hinds, 2-2 in conference and ranked 17th, visits 0-4 Coahoma. Northeast and East Central are also off to 3-1 starts. The Tigers are at Southwest (1-3) and the Warriors are at Baton Rouge. … Individual standouts include ICC’s Matthew Martinolich, batting .486; Gulf Coast’s Charlie Keller (12 home runs); Hinds’ Connor Chisolm (34 runs); Meridian’s Dalton McIntyre (18 steals); PRCC’s Cooper Cooksey (5-0, 0.83 ERA); MCC’s Cole Boswell (5-0, 0.96); and Northwest’s Brayden Sanders (4 saves, 0.00 ERA).

05 Mar

juco snapshot

Mississippi’s junior colleges are still tuning up for conference play, which starts for most next weekend, and no team’s motor is running more smoothly than No. 1-ranked Pearl River Community College. The Wildcats, defending national champs in NJCAA Division II, are 15-3, a notch above unranked Jones (14-4) with ninth-ranked Meridian (12-4) lurking. PRCC is led by Alex Perry, a .403 hitter whose 25 knocks are the most of any MACCC player, and Will Passeau, 3-1 with a 2.74 ERA and a state-best 32 strikeouts. The Wildcats have home games today against Lansing and Baton Rouge. Jones, heading into a three-way event Wednesday with Itawamba (10-3) and Delta in Cleveland, has been sparked by Gatlin Sanders, batting .418 with two homers and 18 RBIs. Meridian’s leaders are Dalton McIntyre, a .451 batter with 13 steals, and Chris Boswell, who is 4-0 with a 0.86 ERA. Gulf Coast has the state’s top home run hitters in Charlie Keller and Sean Smith — both with eight, which ranks second nationally — but the Bulldogs are just 7-9. Smith, batting .488, also leads MACCC in RBIs with 25, three more than Hinds’ Dylan Coleman. Hinds, ranked No. 15 in the preseason poll, is 11-6. The best closer in the state to date has been Brayden Sanders, who has three saves and a 0.00 ERA in six appearances for Northwest (11-6). … The next NJCAA D-II poll will be released March 13. Nine of the state’s 15 teams currently have winning records.