Rust College Archives - Page 2 of 2 - All Mississippi Baseball

22 Apr

comes a time

Jackson State has a chance to ease the pain of a rough season this weekend when Alabama State comes to Braddy Field for a three-game SWAC series. A year after dominating the league (24-0 in the regular season), the Tigers are just 6-9 and fourth in the SWAC East. Alabama State leads the division at 11-2 and swept the Tigers at its home field earlier this month. The 17-2 loss at Mississippi State on Tuesday notwithstanding, JSU has showed signs of a resurgence, winning five of its last six conference contests. JSU (18-19 overall) has gotten consistent offense from Ty Hill (.385, 37 runs), Jatavis Melton (.319, 41 runs, 20 steals) and Devontae Rhodes (.313, 22 RBIs) but not much from the rest of the lineup. The pitching staff, so strong last year, has been knocked around frequently. Only one regular starter, Juan Maruland (5-4, 3.73 ERA), has an ERA under 4.00. Last year’s closer, Steven Davila, has missed most of the season. So, too, has slugger Chenar Brown, the league’s freshman of the year in 2021. Others need to step up. On the positive side, the Tigers are 12-4 at home. And a good showing against Alabama State would go a long way toward building confidence heading into the SWAC Tournament, where the Tigers have a demon to exorcise. P.S. Rust College has finished its regular season with a six-game win streak and a 16-13-1 record under first-year coach John Bates.

02 Feb

on the docket

It’s Groundhog Day. And National Signing Day. It’s also Opening Day. The new college season begins today for Magnolia State schools when a new head coach, John Bates, takes his Rust College Bearcats to Tuskegee University in Alabama. Rust (13-20 last season under Stanley Stubbs, now the new coach at Mississippi Valley State) will lift the lid on a busy opening week for the state’s small schools. Other openers on the docket:
Friday: William Carey launches coach Bobby Halford’s 37th season in a doubleheader against visiting Lindsey Wilson. The Crusaders went 36-12 in 2021, won the Southern States Athletic Conference Tournament and made the NAIA playoffs. … At Clinton, Mississippi College, coming off a disappointing 16-20 campaign, hosts North Greenville for a twinbill. … Delta State, 28-20 and an NCAA Division II regional participant last year, travels to Hot Springs, Ark., to play Henderson State in a tournament.
Saturday: Blue Mountain, where former associate head coach Taylor Clark has taken the reins from program founder Curt Fowler, opens at home with a pair against Williams Baptist. … Millsaps is at LeTourneau (Texas) for a doubleheader to begin coach Jim Page’s 31st season with the Majors, an uncharacteristic 10-24 in 2021. (Millsaps will host an eight-team tournament Feb. 11-13 with games at both Twenty Field and Smith-Wills Stadium.) … Tougaloo (4-21 last year) opens at Xavier (La.).
P.S. Belhaven (20-18 last season) opens Feb. 11 on the road at East Texas Baptist, and MUW (23-11) will play that day vs. Rhodes College in the Millsaps tournament. The NCAA Division I schools start Feb. 18, with the exception of Alcorn State, slated to begin the Reggie Williams era on Feb. 25 at McNeese State.

27 Jul

odds and ends

Stanley Stubbs, who won championships at two colleges in Georgia and coached at Rust College the last two years, will be named coach at Mississippi Valley State on Wednesday. Stubbs succeeds Aaron Stevens, fired after an 0-20 season. Stubbs is a Booneville native who played at Northeast Mississippi Community College and was an assistant coach under Bob Braddy at Jackson State for several years. Rust, an NAIA program, finished 13-20 in 2021. Alcorn State has yet to name a replacement for Brett Richardson, who was not retained after a 7-20 season. … The Mississippi Braves are riding an eight-game losing streak as they head into a 12-game road trip that begins tonight at Pensacola. The Double-A club’s longest losing streak since it arrived in Pearl in 2005 is nine. At 40-32, the M-Braves no longer have the Double-A South’s best record. … Whatever happened to Corey Dickerson? Well, the former Meridian Community College star is expected to begin a rehab assignment this week for the Toronto Blue Jays. Dickerson was on the injured list (foot) with Miami when he was traded on June 29. The veteran outfielder hit .260 with two homers in 62 games for the Marlins. … No surprise really that the top two teams in the Cotton States League North feature the college summer league’s top two pitchers. Will Cook, of Holmes Community College, is 4-0 with a 1.38 ERA for the Tupelo Thunder, 13-6 heading into the season’s final weekend in New Albany. Camron Wright, a lefty from Itawamba CC, is 3-1, 1.66 for the North Delta Dealers, also 13-6. The Dealers took two of three from the Thunder back in June, with Cook notching Tupelo’s lone win. Wright pitched well in the rubber game but didn’t get a decision. … Among the array of stars who’ll be formally inducted into the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame on Saturday night are two baseball icons: former high school coach Jerry Boatner and renowned stadium architect Janet Marie Smith. In addition, Con Maloney, longtime owner of Jackson’s Texas League franchise, will receive the Rube Award, which recognizes lifetime contributions to Mississippi sports and is named in honor former sports museum director Michael Rubenstein.

11 Feb

moving on

Millsaps College will play at Twenty Field this weekend without Keith Shumaker for the first time in five years. The Majors, hosting the three-team Millsaps Invitational, play LaGrange on Friday in their home opener. They went 1-2 in a tournament in Alabama last weekend. Shumaker, the team’s best all-around hitter and pitcher in 2015, was the Southern Athletic Association player of the year and an NCAA Division III All-America as a senior, leading the Majors to a 29-14 finish and an at-large berth in the D-III regionals. Among the familiar faces in purple and white this season is coach Jim Page, who typically finds a way to win. He has 701 career W’s. Page has some experienced talent back in the fold in Isaac Glenn, an All-America candidate who hit .425 last year; Andy Page, .331 in 2015 as a freshman; and Lee Ogletree, .305 last year. Those three combined for nine hits in an 11-7 romp against Southwestern last weekend. P.S. In case you missed it, Rust College opened its season last weekend at Loyola-New Orleans with three losses. The Bearcats, who play in NCAA D-III, were outscored by the NAIA Wolf Pack 54-8.

26 Jul

fun facts

Did you know that Rust College has produced one and only one professional baseball player? His name is Otis Edwards; he played one season in the minors in 1991. Stumbled across this fascinating bit of data on the wonderful web site baseball-reference.com. Atop the list of most pro players produced by a Magnolia State college is Mississippi State, with 196, including 49 major leaguers. Ole Miss is second (at 193 and 48), Southern Miss third (109/23) and Jackson State fourth (62/9). The rest: Delta State 47/10, William Carey 39/1, Mississippi Valley State 21/0, Alcorn State 16/1, Mississippi College 15/7, Belhaven 10/0 and Millsaps 8/4. More on Edwards: Undrafted out of NCAA Division III Rust, he signed with Cleveland and played 29 games at the rookie and short-season Class A levels, batting .152 with seven RBIs, eight runs and three steals. He also pitched a scoreless inning for Burlington of the rookie Appalachian League. The one Carey player to make The Show? John Stephenson, the ex-Crusaders coach. The one Alcorn player? Al Jones, a pitcher in the mid-1980s. … Stumbled across a couple more interesting items in the July/August issue of Baseball Digest. To wit: Don Kessinger was a six-time All-Star and a career .252 hitter with 1,931 hits over 16 years in the majors. But as a pinch hitter, he was 0-for-37, the worst drought of any player in MLB history with at least 20 pinch-hit appearances. Kessinger did draw four walks as a pinch hitter, but still, it makes you wonder, when he reached 0-for-36, why in the world did his manager send him up there again? Also on the list of pinch-hit futility: former Jackson Mets standout Stanley Jefferson, who was 1-for-32. Then there’s this: The dubious distinction of worst-hitting Gold Glove winner in any season belongs to Greenville native George Scott. “Boomer” hit .171 as the Boston Red Sox’s first baseman in 1968, his third year in the big leagues. Scott, a career .268 hitter with 271 home runs, won eight Gold Gloves over his lengthy career. P.S. The current issue of Sports Illustrated (July 27) has a cool photo essay and brief article on the Anderson Monarchs’ Civil Rights Barnstorming Tour that made a stop for a game at Jackson State’s Braddy Field last month. The 23-day, multi-state trip was a living history lesson for the Philadelphia (Pa.) area youth team, which included 2014 Little League World Series star Mo’ne Davis. It’s unclear whether any of the pictures were taken in Mississippi.