Tag Archives: Tanner Hall

15 Jun

name-dropping

Ferriss Trophy winners were making news on Wednesday. The last two winners of Mississippi’s top college honor were named to the NCBWA All-America teams: Southern Miss’ Tanner Hall, the 2022 Ferriss recipient, was named to the first team — his second such honor (Collegiate Baseball) — and 2023 winner Kemp Alderman of Ole Miss made the second team. Hall was 12-4 with a 2.48 ERA for the Golden Eagles, who fell in the Hattiesburg Super Regional on Monday. Alderman hit .376 with 19 homers and 61 RBIs for the Rebels, the defending national champs who did not make the postseason this year. Meanwhile, ex-Mississippi State star Jake Mangum, the Ferriss winner in 2019 and ’16, enjoyed a big day for Triple-A Jacksonville (Miami system), going 4-for-6 with four RBIs as the Jumbo Shrimp swept a doubleheader from Memphis. The Jackson Prep product is batting .286. Worth noting: Up in the Cape Cod League, 2023 Ferriss finalist Hunter Hines of MSU went 2-for-4 with two RBIs in a win by Yarmouth-Dennis; Hines is batting .350 with a homer and six RBIs in five games in the summer league. And 2022 finalist Tim Elko, an Ole Miss alumnus now in pro ball, hit his league-leading 14th home run for Low-Class A Kannapolis (Chicago White Sox). P.S. Dakota Jordan, after an All-SEC Freshman season at State, is killing it in the New England Collegiate League. The Jackson Academy product is batting .444 (8-for-18, plus six walks) with five RBIs and nine runs in six games for Newport.

23 May

the winner is …

Here’s a bit of topical trivia: Who was the first Ferriss Trophy winner to make the big leagues? It was Drew Pomeranz, who debuted with Colorado in 2011, a year after he won the Ferriss and was drafted in the first round (fifth overall) by Cleveland. The 2022 Ferriss Trophy, given annually to the state’s best player at a four-year school, was awarded today to Southern Miss pitcher Tanner Hall during a ceremony at the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame and Museum. Hall, 20, just a sophomore, may get his shot at pro ball and the big leagues someday. Only one of the first six Ferriss winners made the major leagues; Ed Easley (2007) got a cup of coffee with St. Louis in 2015. Ole Miss alum Pomeranz is still playing, though the big left-hander is currently on the injured list with San Diego. Last year’s winner, Mississippi State’s Tanner Allen, is in High-Class A with Miami, currently batting .233. The 2019 winner, State’s Jake Mangum (who also won as a freshman in 2016) is in Double-A in the New York Mets’ chain, hitting .283. Three other previous winners are now in the majors: Chris Stratton (Pittsburgh), Hunter Renfroe (Milwaukee) and Nick Sandlin (Cleveland). Brent Rooker, who made his MLB debut in 2020, is in Triple-A with San Diego.

03 Mar

punched out

Swing and a miss. The enduring image from Wednesday night’s Mississippi State-Southern Miss clash at Trustmark Park in Pearl is of Bulldogs batters flailing at off-speed pitches from Golden Eagles right-hander Tanner Hall. Before a crowd of 6,387 mostly MSU fans, Hall struck out 13 over seven shutout innings as USM decked the defending national champs 7-1. Bulldogs fans, boisterous at the outset, had little to cheer about as the game went on and the night grew cold. Bulldogs batters were muzzled by Hall, a sophomore from Louisiana making his fourth appearance, second start, for the 6-2 Eagles. He threw 98 pitches, 72 for strikes. Appropriately, he whiffed the last batter he faced. Hall’s counterpart for State, Jackson Fristoe, lasted just three-plus, struck out none and was hit hard. The big blow was a two-run triple by Gabe Montenegro that put USM up 2-0 in the third inning. Reece Ewing followed with an RBI single. USM went up 6-0 in the fifth on a two-run double by Slade Wilks. All told, the opportunistic Eagles produced seven hits, seven walks and two sac bunts. The Bulldogs, a consensus top 10 team at the moment, are scuffling at 5-4. They’re hitting .260 as a team and have fanned 72 times. They managed seven hits Wednesday, but their only big knock was an eighth-inning RBI double off the bat of star catcher Logan Tanner. State will no doubt get it turned around at some point, but Wednesday night was a swing and a miss.