Two weekends into it, the college baseball season is but a puppy. Nevertheless, we can make at least one observation:
Our Mississippi teams have really high ceilings. They can play ball. Omaha is not out of the question for any of the three.
Mississippi State, Ole Miss and Southern Miss, all nationally ranked in all polls, are a combined 22-1. State and Ole Miss are both 8-0, albeit against lesser competition. Southern Miss, playing top shelf foes early, is 6-1, has won six straight and this past weekend won the prestigious Round Rock Classic, knocking off Purdue, traditional powerhouse Oregon State and Baylor on consecutive days.
Let’s take a look, shall we?
State readies for big weekend
Mississippi State slugger Ace Reese. (Photo by Hallie Walker)Brian O’Connor’s first Diamond Dogs came into the season with sky-high expectations and have done nothing to dash those. Led by slugging third baseman Ace Reese, the Bulldogs are hitting .341 as a team with eight home runs through eight games.
For his part, Reese is hitting .500 with two dingers and seven doubles. Perhaps the more pertinent news is that State pitching had one a much better job of throwing strikes in the early going, fanning 101 batters while walking only 22, a nearly 5-to-1 ratio. Opponents are hitting only .204
All this comes with this caveat: Troy, a traditionally strong program off to a disappointing 3-4 start, is by far the best foe the Bulldogs have played. State has sandwiched weekend sweeps of Hofstra and Delaware around midweek victories over Troy and Alcorn State.
The competition level rises exponentially this weekend when State goes to the Amegy Bank College Baseball Series at Arlington, Texas, to face Arizona State, Virginia Tech and No. 1 ranked UCLA on consecutive days. We will know much more then.
And then, two days after squaring off against No. 1, the Bulldogs will play Southern Miss in Hattiesburg. We’ll know even more.
State opens the SEC season March 13 at Arkansas.
Ole Miss has nation’s best albeit-too-early RPI
Badly underrated (at least in my opinion) in preseason polls, Ole Miss has started fast and even ranks No. 1 in much-too-early power ratings (ratings percentage index, or RPI). The Rebels have weekend sweeps of Nevada and a good Missouri State program and two mid-week wins over Arkansas State and Jackson State.
Similarly to State, the competition gets a lot better fast. The Rebels will play Baylor, Ohio State and Coastal Carolina in the Bruce Bolt College Classic this weekend in Houston. Yes, we’ll know a lot more about the Rebels, too.
Mike BiancoWhat we know for certain now is that Ole Miss has left-handed ace Hunter Elliott back for Friday nights, and if he’s not the most accomplished college baseball lefty in the land, he’s in the first sentence of any discussion.
What we also know is that the Rebels will continue to live and die with the long ball. You wouldn’t want to play them in Home Run Derby.
Ole Miss has already hit 15 dingers, led by Judd Uttermark’s six. That’s right: six, in eight games. The beer showers are coming early and often in Oxford.
The Uber-strong Uttermark, who hit 22 homers last year, crushed one over the left-field wall Sunday into a howling north wind, a rare feat at Swayze Field. As Mike Bianco put it, “When he hit it I just stood there. Judd is a little different human being than most who play here.”
Ole Miss begins its SEC schedule March 13 at Texas.
Southern Miss sweeps at Round Rock
Chris Ostrander’s Golden Eagles lost their season opener to Cal-Santa Barbara and their All-American ace Jackson Flora. Since then, Southern Miss has reeled off six straight wins against formidable foes. At Round Rock, the Eagles toppled Purdue 5-4, No. 11 Oregon State (three national championships in the last two decades) 9-4 and Baylor 5-1. Five, if not all six, of the Eagles’ victories have come against teams likely to be playing in the post-season.
Joey UrbanThe early hitting star has been senior Joey Urban, who has used the whole field, from foul line to foul line, for a .458 average (with two homers and a triple) against mostly top-notch pitching. He leads the team in batting average, hits, slugging percentage and walks.
As Joe Paul, Southern Miss president and perhaps its No. 1 baseball fan, puts it: “Joey Urban is a professional hitter.”
The Golden Eagles are deep, both in the everyday lineup and on the mound. One stat Ostrander, a pitching guru, probably doesn’t like is that pitching has allowed 25 walks and hit nine batters in just the seven games. But, again, you have to consider the competition, which won’t get any easier any time soon.
Southern Miss was hosting Alabama on Monday night before heading to always-tough Louisiana Tech for a three-game weekend series, and then returning home to play Mississippi State on March 3.
All these bouts against heavyweights should have the Eagles more than ready when the Sun Belt Conference season begins March 13 at Arkansas State.
And there’s good baseball elsewhere…
Division II powerhouse Delta State has fired off to a 9-2 start, 6-0 in conference play, including a three-game road sweep rival Union University this past weekend. Coach Rodney Batts almost completely overhauled the Statesmen roster, bringing in 28 new players. Among those is relief pitcher Dawson Muenzenmay, formerly of Northwest Rankin High School and Hinds Community College, who has two victories and two saves in his first five appearances. He has not allowed a run and struck out 12 in eight innings.
William Carey has won five straight and 11 of its first 16 games under Bobby Halford, the winningest coach in Mississippi college baseball history.
Pre-season SWAC favorite Jackson State, 3-4, faces an unusually busy week with a Tuesday double-header against Tougaloo and four games this weekend (Alcorn State on Friday, Mississippi Valley and UNC-Ashville on Saturday, and UNC-Ashville again on Sunday.) No doubt, the six-game week will stress Coach Omar Johnson’s pitching staff, which has struggled thus far.
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