Tag Archives: William Carey University

06 Nov

names in the news

Bobby Halford: Congratulations to the longtime William Carey University coach on his election to the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame. Halford is the state’s all-time winningest college coach with 1,375 wins over 40 years at the Hattiesburg school. His teams have made 26 appearances in the NAIA Tournament and three trips to the World Series. Halford has won more coach of the year honors than you can count.
Konnor Griffin: The former Jackson Prep star added a minor league Gold Glove award to the numerous player of the year honors he has collected. The first-year pro, Pittsburgh’s top prospect, had a .980 fielding percentage at shortstop with seven errors in 89 games. He also played some center field while moving through three levels.
Antoan Richardson: The ex-Mississippi Braves standout has joined new Atlanta manager Walt Weiss’ staff as first-base coach. Richardson, who coached with the New York Mets in 2025, played in Pearl in 2010-11 and made the majors in 2011 with Atlanta. He also played for the Yankees and is remembered for scoring the run on Derek Jeter’s walk-off hit in his final MLB at-bat.
Brandon Woodruff: The Mississippi State product from Wheeler declined his mutual option with Milwaukee and became a free agent. Woodruff went 7-2 with a 3.20 ERA in 12 games in 2025 but ended the season on the injured list. He missed all of 2024 following arm surgery. He is 53-28 over an eight-year big league career.
Michael Fowler: The former Southern Miss pitcher has made six appearances in the Arizona Fall League without allowing an earned run over seven innings. Milwaukee signed Fowler off the independent Mississippi Mud Monsters’ roster last summer, and he put up good numbers in A-ball.

17 Sep

just stuff

Dakota Jordan, the ex-Mississippi State star from Canton, and Niko Mazza, a Southern Miss and MRA alum, celebrated a California League championship on Tuesday night. The San Francisco Giants’ Low-Class A San Jose club won the pennant with a 4-2 victory over Inland Empire. Jordan, a Cal League postseason All-Star, has been on the injured list since mid-August; he hit .311 with 14 homers and 82 RBIs. Mazza, 4-3 with a 2.22 ERA this season, did not pitch in the clincher. … Former William Carey University standout Patrick Lee won a ring with Detroit’s High-A West Michigan team, which completed a dominant season with a Midwest League championship. … Ex-DeSoto Central High slugger Blaze Jordan belted his 12th homer for Triple-A Memphis – a two-run shot off MSU product Christian MacLeod – as the Redbirds (a St. Louis affiliate) beat St. Paul 7-6. Jordan has 18 homers and 94 RBIs all told this season, his fifth in the minors. … After a month-long stay on the IL, Jordan Westburg returned to Baltimore’s lineup and went 0-for-3 with two walks and a run in the Orioles’ win against the Chicago White Sox. The MSU alum is the Orioles’ Roberto Clemente Award nominee for 2025. … Ex-USM standout Chuckie Robinson – 0-for-1 with a run and a sac in his one appearance for the Los Angeles Dodgers – was sent down (again) to the minors. … After his sizzling start for Boston, former MSU star Nathaniel Lowe is now in a 2-for-20 skid; he went 0-for-1 as a pinch hitter in the Red Sox’s 2-1 loss to the A’s. … Current MSU standout Ace Reese – the SEC newcomer of the year last season – was ranked the No. 8 draft prospect among college players for 2026 by MLB Pipeline. Reese hit .352 with 21 bombs in 2025.

06 Sep

minor matters

The Have-a-Day Award, minor league edition, for Friday has to go to Bryson Ware, the Germantown High product now in the Philadelphia system. Ware went 4-for-4 with three doubles, two RBIs and a run in Double-A Reading’s 7-6 loss to Hartford. Just a .226 career hitter in three pro seasons, third baseman Ware is batting .296 with two homers and eight RBIs in 14 games since his move up to Double-A. He has 10 homers all told in 2025. A former Pearl River Community College star, he was drafted out of Auburn in the eighth round in ’23. … Ex-Ole Miss star Kemp Alderman homered for the fifth time in six games with Triple-A Jacksonville. The Miami prospect now has 20 homers on the year and is batting .282 overall, .300 in Triple-A. … Southaven’s Blaze Jordan went deep twice for Triple-A Memphis and now has 17 bombs on the year and 60 in his five years in the minors. Jordan, 22, is batting .184 with five homers and 25 RBIs in 27 games for St. Louis’ top affiliate. … Mississippi State alum and erstwhile big leaguer J.P. France, laboring on the injury comeback trail in Houston’s system, went five innings, yielding just one run, for Triple-A Sugar Land in a 5-2 win vs. Oklahoma City. France is 2-1 with a 6.38 ERA in seven games for the Space Cowboys. … Of note: Konnor Griffin, hit by a pitch four times over a three-day span, did not play Friday for Double-A Altoona. Pittsburgh’s top-rated prospect is hitting .330 with 19 homers and 65 bags on the year. … The Los Angeles Dodgers are expected to call up a catcher today, and it might not be coincidence that ex-Southern Miss star Chuckie Robinson was pulled from Triple-A Oklahoma City’s game early on Friday night. Robinson, who has big league experience, is hitting .259 with four homers and 28 RBIs for the Comets. He is not on the Dodgers’ 40-man roster. P.S. Hailed as “the best team in baseball” by none other than the Wall Street Journal, the West Michigan Whitecaps are the only team in pro ball with 90 wins (current .698 win percentage) and have a ridiculous run differential of plus-284. And, yes, there is a Mississippian on the team. Pascagoula native Patrick Lee, a former William Carey University star, is a role player for the Whitecaps, Detroit’s High-Class A affiliate. The 25-year-old outfielder is batting .207 with a .394 OBP and has four homers, 24 RBIs and 27 steals in 63 games. Lee wasn’t drafted out of NAIA Carey, where he finished in 2023 with a .335 career average. He played in the MLB Draft League that summer, then in the independent Frontier League early in 2024 before Detroit signed him. West Michigan (90-38), not exactly loaded with top Tigers prospects, won both halves in the Midwest League East Division and will go into the playoffs as a heavy favorite for the pennant.

25 Aug

details, details …

Sunday stuff: Two more hits and RBIs for Nathaniel Lowe. That’s seven knocks in 16 at-bats with seven RBIs for the ex-Mississippi State star in six games with Boston. The Red Sox lost to the New York Yankees on Sunday and are 3-3 in Lowe’s appearances. … Two more hits, an RBI, a run, three different positions and a win for Kansas City’s Adam Frazier. The former MSU standout is hitting .295 with 14 RBIs and 12 runs in his 29 games for the wild card-chasing Royals, 19-12 since the All-Star break. … Konnor Pilkington, MSU product from Pascagoula, struck out the Philadelphia side in the seventh inning of Washington’s 3-2 loss; he has 18 punchouts in 14 2/3 innings — with a 5.52 ERA — in 16 games this season. … Blaze Jordan, DeSoto Central High product, drove in a run for Triple-A Memphis, his 16th RBI in 17 games since joining the St. Louis affiliate in a trade. He is batting just .129. … In his first week in Double-A, ex-Jackson Prep standout Konnor Griffin batted .286 with four RBIs, four runs and four steals for Pittsburgh’s Altoona club. … Former Southern Miss star Dustin Dickerson scored one run for Northwest Arkansas, but it was the game-winner in a walk-off victory by the Royals’ Double-A club. … MSU product Kamren James hit his first homer of the season and fellow Bulldogs alum Colton Ledbetter added his sixth in a win for Double-A Montgomery, a Tampa Bay affiliate. … Patrick Lee, former William Carey University star, hit his fourth homer for West Michigan, one of six bombs Detroit’s High-Class A club belted in a 16-0 win. … Luke Hill, a 2025 draftee out of Ole Miss, got three more hits and is batting .417 in seven games for Low-A Lynchburg in Cleveland’s chain. He has a homer, four RBIs, five runs and five bags. … Michael Fowler took a loss for Low-A Carolina but still has yet to yield an earned run in five appearances for the Milwaukee affiliate. He pitched for USM and the independent Mississippi Mud Monsters this season before the Brewers signed him on July 29. P.S. Fun flashback: On this date in 1995, former Jackson Mets star Gregg Jefferies hit for the cycle and ex-Jackson Generals ace Jeff Juden threw a complete game and clubbed a grand slam as Philadelphia whipped the Los Angeles Dodgers (and Hideo Nomo) 17-4.

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.

12 May

smalls world

Seeking a third straight trip to the NAIA World Series, William Carey University takes on Indiana Southeast today at Wheeler Field in Hattiesburg. British Columbia plays Oklahoma Wesleyan in the other Opening Round game in this four-team, double-elimination regional. The Crusaders, who won the regular season title in the SSAC, are 38-12 and ranked 10th in the nation. Carey won an NAIA national title in 1969. It’s a busy week for Mississippi’s small schools: Delta State and Mississippi College each received at-large bids to the NCAA Division II Tournament; Millsaps and Belhaven made the NCAA D-III field as at-large teams; and Pearl River Community College and East Central CC will face off in a best-of-3 series for the NJCAA D-II Region 23 championship. … Delta State (32-18), regular season champion in the Gulf South, will play West Florida on Thursday at Lakeland, Fla., in a four-team bracket in the South Region. MC (33-21), which last made the NCAA field in 2018, is in the other South Region bracket at Tampa, Fla., and will play Lynn on Thursday. Tampa is the No. 1 seed in the region, MC No. 4 and DSU No. 6. … Millsaps (29-13), regular season champ in the Southern Athletic Association, heads for the East Texas Baptist Regional at Marshall, Texas, to play the host school in the first round. Belhaven (31-13) plays Rhodes in the Webster (Mo.) Regional. Only 23 at-large bids are awarded in the 64-team D-III Tournament. … On Wednesday at Poplarville, juco juggernauts Pearl River, ranked No. 2, and East Central, ranked seventh, will clash for a trip to the NJCAA World Series in Enid, Okla. PRCC, regular season champ in the MACCC, is 48-7, and ECCC is 41-12. Both have been ranked No. 1 in the country this season. ECCC went to the World Series in 2023 and ’24. PRCC won the national title in 2022. They split their regular season meeting this spring. P.S. It already has been a banner year for the state’s small schools. Along with the three conference titles, three coaches won coach of the year awards: Bobby Halford at Carey, Rodney Batts at DSU and Jim Page at Millsaps. Carey’s Josh Alexander was named the SSAC player of the year; DSU’s Drake Fontenot won GSC pitcher of the year honors; and Millsaps’ Bradley Pelle (player) and Nick Tarantino (pitcher) swept the SAA’s top awards. In addition, MC had four GSC first-team picks, and Belhaven had four named in the Collegiate Conference of the South. Carey had three All-SSAC picks in addition to Alexander, and DSU’s Brett Burrell made All-GSC along with Fontenot.

02 May

racking up wins

William Carey University moved to 2-0 in pool play in the SSAC Tournament with an 8-4 win Thursday over in-state rival Blue Mountain Christian at Jackson, Tenn. The victory was especially significant for Carey coach Bobby Halford, who moved past Ron Polk on the career wins list with No. 1,374, according to a school release. “It’s great for our program and our university. I’ve been very blessed to be able to do this all of these years and I owe my family a big thank you for all of their support,” Halford, in his 40th season, said in the release. Halford ranks in the top 20 for all-time wins at any college level. In Thursday’s victory, Bridley Thomas drove in three runs and Bobby Magee threw seven solid innings for his seventh W as the Crusaders, ranked 10th in NAIA, improved to 37-11. (The current record includes two forfeits from Faulkner.) Carey plays Middle Georgia State today. BMC, 0-2 in the tournament, fell to 27-24. P.S. Belhaven also got a big win Thursday, crushing Piedmont (Ga.) 9-1 to move to 2-0 in the CCS Tournament at Maryville, Tenn. Nick Thornton drove in four runs with three doubles and Sylvester Colton and Lane Alack combined on a five-hitter. The Blazers are 30-11 and riding a seven-game win streak. They’ll play a semifinal game today. … Rust (22-28) bowed out of the HBCUAC Tournament with a pair of losses at North Little Rock, Ark. … The GSC Tournament starts today with Delta State, the top seed, facing Montevallo (Ala.) and 4-seed Mississippi College meeting West Alabama at Oxford, Ala.

18 Apr

answering the bell

Southern Miss, Ole Miss and Jackson State each dealt with a sense of urgency on Thursday. Two of them — USM and JSU — got the result they needed. In Hattiesburg, the Golden Eagles faced Georgia State on Hill Denson Bobblehead Night with an announced 5,408, including the former coach, on hand at Taylor Park. If ever there was a must-win game … . USM made the Hall of Fame coach proud with an 8-1 win, belting five homers to back the brilliant pitching of J.B. Middleton. Nick Monistere hit his 13th homer — fifth in three games — and Middleton (7-1) tossed eight innings (three hits, one run, 12 strikeouts) as USM moved to 26-12, 11-5 Sun Belt. At Braddy Field in Jackson, JSU, which had lost seven of eight, rode a dominant outing from Erick Gonzalez to a 2-0 victory against Alabama A&M. Gonzalez (4-3) worked 8 2/3, allowing six hits and punching out 10. The Tigers (18-17, 6-10 SWAC) cobbled together two runs in the second inning on a sac bunt, an error and a sac fly. Alas, Ole Miss, coming off a clunky home loss to Arkansas-Little Rock, went to Columbia, S.C., and dropped a 3-2 decision to South Carolina, one of the worst teams in the SEC at 3-13. Hunter Elliott (5-2) allowed three runs in 5 1/3 innings to take a hard-luck loss for the nationally ranked Rebels (27-11, 9-7 SEC). UM has lost three in a row and four of five. … Incidentally, d1baseball.com projects Ole Miss to host a regional that will include USM. The website also put Mississippi State in the 64-team field. The Bulldogs (23-14, 5-10) open a big SEC series today against Florida (25-14, 4-11) at Starkville. … Also on tap this weekend: William Carey University visits Blue Mountain Christian in an SCAC series. Ranked No. 9 in NAIA, Carey (31-9, 20-4) leads 34-8 in the all-time series with BMC. But the Toppers (21-22, 10-14) won the regular season series in 2024 before losing a league tournament game to the Crusaders. P.S. In MLB: Cool moment at Steinbrenner Field in Tampa on Thursday when Tampa Bay’s Jake Mangum faced former Jackson Prep teammate Will Warren, the New York Yankees’ starting pitcher, in the second inning. Mangum hit a high hopper that Warren fielded, but with no one covering first base for some reason, Mangum got an infield hit. That was the rookies’ only clash. Mangum had two hits to raise his average to .345; Warren (5.17 ERA) lasted just 1 2/3 innings, yielding one run. The Yanks won 6-3. … Former Jackson Mets and big league manager Clint Hurdle is the new hitting coach for Colorado, which dismissed Hensley Meulens on Thursday.

25 Mar

into the arena

We like rivalries. Kong vs. Godzilla. Batman vs. Joker. Red Sox-Yankees. State-Ole Miss. Tonight brings a pair of intrastate clashes that don’t rise to the level of those conflicts but do have some spice. Some history. Belhaven University is at neighboring Millsaps College in the first game of the Maloney Trophy Series, and Mississippi College is at William Carey University in a rare inter-classification contest. … Belhaven leads its all-time series with fellow NCAA Division III member Millsaps by a 34-18 count (30-19, per MC’s website). The Blazers — once an NAIA team that had a great rivalry with Carey — have won four straight against Millsaps and 12 of the last 13. The Majors haven’t claimed the Maloney Trophy since 2018. Both appear to have solid teams this season. Belhaven is 14-8, Millsaps 16-6 (and 13-5 at Twenty Field). J.D. Weed has been a force at the plate for BU, batting .437 with three homers and 22 RBIs. Millsaps features the reigning SAA player of the week, Gray Berry, who went 11-for-21 last week and is at .407 with four homers and 26 RBIs for the year. Never know what kind of pitching you’ll see in a midweek game, but for what it’s worth: Belhaven has a 3.85 staff ERA, Millsaps a 5.12. … Carey, an NAIA power under coach Bobby Halford, leads its series with NCAA D-II MC 14-10, but the Choctaws have won the last three meetings and seven of eight. MC — a D-III school for a time and once part of the Maloney Trophy competition — is 21-9 overall and 8-4 on the road. Carey, ranked No. 8 in NAIA, is 26-4 with 12 straight wins and holds a 16-2 record at Wheeler Field in Hattiesburg. Korey Cooper tops MC’s batters with a .413 average; Bryan LaRocca (.383) has 10 homers and 40 RBIs. Carey’s leading hitter is Tyler Ducksworth at .382, while Josh Alexander has smacked 12 homers and Preston Ratliff 10. The Crusaders’ team ERA is 4.41, MC’s 4.37.

17 Mar

digging the long ball

Brewton-Parker Field in Mount Vernon, Ga., isn’t especially small, but for William Carey University’s hitters, it played like a bandbox over the weekend. The Crusaders hit 19 home runs and scored 75 runs all told — 31, 11 and 33 — in a three-game sweep of the Southern States Athletic Conference series. “(P)laying in some of the smaller parks really plays into our power throughout the lineup,” Carey coach Bobby Halford said in a school release. Carey, ranked 12th in NAIA, is 22-4 and 13-2 in the SSAC with eight wins in a row. Brewton-Parker fell to 9-15, 4-11. High-scoring games aren’t uncommon at BP Field: Four times previously visiting teams had scored 13 or more runs in 2025. The host scored a season-high 17 in Game 1 vs. Carey. But still, the Crusaders’ show of power was jaw-dropping. Jayden Mark had a three-homer game, his first three of the season. Josh Alexander, Carey’s homer leader at 10, had two two-homer games, and Preston Ratliff and Rigoberto Hernandez each produced a two-homer game. The Crusaders entered the series with 17 homers over 23 games. … Of the state’s big four NCAA Division I schools, only one came out of the first weekend of conference play feeling very good. Southern Miss (14-6) took two of three from visiting Old Dominion to start Sun Belt play, though the Golden Eagles lost Game 3. Ole Miss (15-4) dropped two of three at home against Arkansas, Mississippi State (13-7) was swept by visiting Texas and Jackson State (12-6) went 1-2 at Prairie View A&M. … Millsaps College rallied from four runs down to beat Centre 5-4 at Twenty Field to split a Sunday doubleheader; Charles Hunt, a pinch hitter, knocked in the game-winner in the bottom of the seventh. The Majors are 12-5, 1-1 Southern Athletic Association. Centre, nationally ranked in Division III, is 12-2, 4-1. P.S. In MLB, ex-State star Hunter Renfroe hit two doubles and a triple and drove in five runs for Kansas City in a Cactus League game. Veteran outfielder Renfroe is batting .348 with a homer and nine RBIs this spring. … Brandon Woodruff, former Bulldogs pitcher, threw a scoreless inning for Milwaukee in his first MLB game action since 2023. “It was a big day for me,” a beaming Woodruff, coming off shoulder surgery, told reporters. … Right-hander J.T. Ginn, another MSU product, was optioned to Triple-A by the A’s; Ginn made his MLB debut last season.