 Headlined by NJCAA All-Region 23 selection Stormy Lewis (left), head coach Kate Neely’s EMCC Lady Lions had five players earn 2012 postseason softball honors, including (clockwise) Cory Roberson, Amber Spann, Paige Sheppard and Shelby Sheppard.
Sophomore catcher/third baseman Stormy Lewis headlined EMCC’s list of 2012 honorees by being named to the 15-member NJCAA All-Region 23 squad and making the 10-player All-MACJC North Division First Team. Also for the Lady Lions, sophomore first baseman Cory Roberson was selected to the All-MACJC North Division Second Team, while EMCC teammates Paige Sheppard, Amber Spann and Shelby Sheppard each collected All-MACJC North Division Honorable Mention accolades. Lewis, a former standout at Quitman High School, led head coach Kate Neely’s EMCC Lady Lions in batting average (.441), hits (49), home runs (4), runs batted in (27) and on-base percentage (.500) this past season. Having already signed with Delta State University, Lewis transferred to the Scooba campus after playing her freshman season at Meridian Community College. With her all-region selection, Lewis will now be eligible for NJCAA All-American consideration. Roberson, one of four former Clarkdale High School products on EMCC’s 2012 roster, batted .254 with 15 runs batted in this past year. Defensively, she was stellar at first base with only one error in 176 chances for an impressive .994 fielding percentage. A sophomore shortstop for the Lady Lions, Paige Sheppard hit .269 on the year with a team-leading 16 extra-base hits, including 14 doubles. The former Southeast Lauderdale High School product was second on the EMCC team with 25 RBIs in addition to scoring 23 runs on the season. Spann, also hailing from Clarkdale’s successful softball program, was EMCC’s second-leading hitter with a .350 batting average this past season. Along with nine extra-base hits, the freshman outfielder scored a team-high 31 runs and knocked in another 20 runs on the year. Fellow freshman Shelby Sheppard paced EMCC’s pitching staff with an 8-6 record and team-best 2.69 earned run average this past spring. The former Kemper Academy standout allowed 65 hits, while striking out 47 and issuing 28 walks, in 78 innings of work as a collegiate rookie for the Lady Lions. As a team, the EMCC Lady Lions were 18-24 overall this past year and finished fourth in the MACJC’s North Division standings with a 12-12 record. Their fourth consecutive MACJC State Softball Tournament appearance was halted by eventual state champion and NJCAA Region 23 Tournament runner-up Jones County Junior College, currently ranked third in the nation.
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 08 May 2012 )
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.jpg "Image") All eight sophomore members of this year’s EMCC men’s basketball team, which made a third straight appearance in the NJCAA National Tournament under the guidance of head coach Mark White, will continue their academic and basketball careers at four-year institutions, including four players heading to NCAA Division I programs.
All eight of head coach Mark White’s sophomore players from last year’s NJCAA National Tournament squad are headed to four-year institutions to continue their respective academic and basketball careers. Included in that talented eight-man group are four players who have signed national letters of intent with NCAA Division I programs.
“Sending all eight of our sophomores on to continue their education and basketball careers is the ultimate goal,” said White, who has guided the EMCC Lions to composite records of 75-18 (.806) overall and 33-3 (.917) in division play over the past three seasons. “Credit goes to these young student-athletes who have given their heart and soul to East Mississippi Community College. It also shows the tremendous amount of respect our program receives throughout the country.”
Most notably, 6-foot-8, 225-pound forward Colin Borchert, by way of Phoenix, Ariz., will move 60 miles north from Scooba to Starkville to join newly hired head basketball coach Rick Ray at Mississippi State University. As a third-team NJCAA All-American, Borchert averaged 15.5 points and a team-leading 7.7 rebounds per game in helping lead the 23-6 EMCC Lions to the NJCAA Division I Men’s Basketball National Championship in Hutchinson, Kan., for the third straight year.
Fellow NJCAA All-American D.J. Evans, a former All-Metro Jackson playmaker from Brandon High School, will have the farthest to travel as he heads to the University of Albany in New York. The UAlbany Great Danes, coached by Will Brown, are members of the America East Conference. A two-year starter in the EMCC backcourt, Evans averaged 15.5 points, 4.1 assists, 3.2 rebounds and 1.7 steals an outing this past season as a second-team All-America selection.
Also rewarded with NCAA Division I scholarships were post player Millaun Brown and versatile guard Tradarrius McPhearson. Brown, from West Bolivar High School, recently signed with the Warhawks of the University of Louisiana at Monroe, guided by head coach Keith Richard and members of the Sun Belt Conference. At 6-foot-6 and 215 pounds, Brown started all 59 games of his EMCC career, averaging 6.6 points and 6.1 rebounds per contest while shooting 60 percent from the field as a sophomore.
Emerging as a starter this past year, McPhearson inked with head coach Mark Slessinger’s Privateers of the University of New Orleans, who will again compete as an NCAA Division I Independent program in 2012-13. Having prepped at Raymond High School, McPhearson averaged 8.3 points, 3.6 rebounds, 2.0 assists and 1.6 steals per game as a sophomore starter for the EMCC Lions.
A trio of EMCC teammates from the past two years will jointly transfer to NAIA member Belhaven University in Jackson, as Deon Bedford, Curtis Hall and Dione Milsap are slated to join head coach Tom Kelsey’s Blazers for the 2012-13 hoops campaign. Bedford, a former West Oktibbeha County High School standout, actually was affiliated with EMCC’s basketball program for all three of the Lions’ successive NJCAA Tournament appearances as well as their back-to-back-to-back NJCAA Region 23 Tournament titles and MACJC North Division regular-season crowns after having sat out the 2009-10 season in Scooba. The 6-foot-5, 180-pound swing player averaged 8.0 points and 5.3 rebounds an outing as a sophomore.
Hall, who originally arrived on the Scooba campus from West Point High School to play football, averaged 6.7 points and 5.7 rebounds for the Lions this past season. The athletic 6-foot-2, 185-pound forward also rated as one of the Lions’ top defensive performers throughout his EMCC career.
Completing the EMCC triumvirate heading to Belhaven, Milsap served as a valuable role player in the Lions’ backcourt for two seasons after competing at Yazoo County High School. The sharp-shooting guard most recently averaged 5.0 points a game as a 42-percent three-point shooter for the Lions in 2011-12.
Transfer forward Lakin Ford rounds out EMCC’s eight-member sophomore class moving onto the next level, as the former West Point High School product is slated to continue his education at NCAA Division III member Mississippi College in Clinton and play for head coach Don Lofton’s MC Choctaws. Ford, who played his freshman season at Meridian Community College, contributed 4.1 points and 2.6 rebounds per contest as a valuable reserve for the Lions this past season.
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Last Updated ( Monday, 07 May 2012 )
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.jpg "Image") EMCC President Dr. Rick Young and Lions head football coach Buddy Stephens helped celebrate the school’s first-ever national championship during Saturday evening’s football banquet and ring presentation ceremony held in the Lyceum auditorium on the Golden Triangle campus.
Players and coaches from last year’s school-first national championship team were on hand for the 90-minute ceremony in which they were presented separate rings commemorating the Lions’ 2011 NJCAA National Championship as well as their second MACJC State Championship in three years. Attending Lion players, including many of whom have already begun their senior college careers, also received gift bags which included their actual game jerseys from the El Toro Bowl/NJCAA National Championship Game and personalized poster-sized artwork of the team’s championship rings. Along with the presentation of championship rings to EMCC players, coaches, administrators and support staff personnel, individual awards and certificates were handed out by members of the Lions’ coaching staff honoring EMCC players for their All-American, NJCAA All-Region 23 and MACJC All-State/North Division recognition a year ago. Banquet attendees were also treated to a season highlight video presentation by EMCC media specialist Derek Cody as well as speeches from EMCC President Dr. Rick Young, Vice President/Director of Athletics Mickey Stokes and 2011 National Junior College Football Coach of the Year Buddy Stephens. Dr. Young also used the podium to acknowledge the EMCC football team’s visit to Jackson earlier in the week to accept Senate Concurrent Resolution 525 from state legislators for their 2011 season accomplishments. The Lions also had the privilege of visiting with Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant in his office during their trip to Mississippi’s capital city. After kicking off their much-anticipated 2011 football campaign at the new $4.7 million, 5,000-seat New Sullivan-Windham Field with a 34-30 victory over then-reigning state champion Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College back on Sept. 1, the Lions proceeded to march through their MACJC North Division slate unblemished for the third time in four seasons. Earning the right to host the MACJC State Playoffs for the second time in three years, EMCC defeated MACJC South Division foes Hinds Community College (55-24) and MGCCC (42-17) in postseason play to claim the school’s second MACJC State Championship in three years. The Lions capped their first-ever undefeated football season by traveling to Yuma, Ariz., and knocking off top-ranked Arizona Western College, 55-47 on Dec. 3, in the AWC-hosted El Toro Bowl for the NJCAA Football Championship.
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 East Mississippi Community College rodeo standouts Kellie Hailey (left) and Will Lummus have qualified to compete in the prestigious College National Finals Rodeo, to be held June 10-16 in Casper, Wyo.
Lummus, from West Point’s Oak Hill Academy, will compete in the CNFR’s steer wrestling event for the second straight year. Hailey, a freshman by way of Macon’s Central Academy, is slated to compete in both breakaway roping and goat tying after claiming the Women’s All-around championship within the Ozark Region of the National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association.
After finishing 23rd among 39 CNFR competitors in last year’s national steer wrestling event, Lummus rallied this spring to capture Reserve Champion honors among the NIRA’s Ozark Region standings for the second consecutive year. He capped the 2012 regular season by winning back-to-back steer wrestling titles during a pair of Northwest Mississippi Community College-hosted rodeos. Last week in Centerton, Ark., Lummus earned 160 points for his second straight steer wrestling victory to give him 340 event points over the final two rodeos of the spring and a total of 610 points accumulated during the 10-rodeo 2011-12 campaign. In addition to collecting steer wrestling honors two weeks ago in Senatobia, Lummus opened the current season by winning his specialty event at the Missouri Valley College-hosted rodeo held during the fall.
In her first season competing for EMCC’s second-year rodeo program, Hailey compiled 1,043.33 total points over the 10 rodeos held this season to finish 165 points ahead of Korah Agre from Missouri Valley. Hailey solidified this year’s Ozark Region Women’s All-around title by earning 185 total points at the regular-season finale held in Centerton, Ark., with a first-place showing in the breakaway roping event in addition to also placing in goat tying. Earlier in the spring, she claimed All-around Champion honors at the UT Martin-hosted rodeo with a second-place finish in goat tying while also scoring in barrel racing to pick up 215 total points. A year ago as a Central Academy senior, Hailey reigned as the Reserve All-around Cowgirl in the state of Mississippi and was a 2011 National Qualifier.
With the top three student-athletes in each of the nine sanctioned events from the NIRA’s 11 participating regions qualifying for the prestigious College National Finals Rodeo, EMCC freshman cowboy Scooter Scarbrough, of Florence, finished the regular season just 20 points shy of third place in the tie down roping regional standings.
Over 400 cowboys and cowgirls from more than 100 universities and colleges throughout the country will compete during this year’s 64th College National Finals Rodeo to be held for the 14th consecutive year at the Casper (Wyo.) Events Center.
As a second-year program this season, head coach Morgan Goodrich’s East Mississippi Community College rodeo teams made significant improvements among the NIRA’s Ozark Region team standings. The EMCC men’s team concluded the 2011-12 campaign ranked fourth among the 11 teams of the Ozark Region, which consists primarily of four-year universities. Along with the men making a two-place improvement from a year ago, the EMCC women’s team climbed four notches from last year’s inaugural season to land in fifth place among the nine women’s teams competing in the Ozark Region.
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 02 May 2012 )
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SCOOBA – East Mississippi Community College will conduct baseball and softball tryouts on Sunday, May 20 on the Scooba campus. Both tryout sessions are slated to begin at 2 p.m., with baseball tryouts set to take place at EMCC’s Gerald Poole Field and softball tryouts being held on the adjacent EMCC Softball Field.
Open to high school seniors, the upcoming tryouts will be conducted by members of the East Mississippi Community College baseball and softball coaching staffs. Interested players are encouraged to contact the EMCC coaching staffs in advance of the May 20 tryout date on the Scooba campus. EMCC baseball tryout confirmations can be e-mailed to Lions assistant coach Eric House at
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, while softball inquiries should be sent to Lady Lions head coach Kate Neely at
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.
Tryout participants are asked to bring their own baseball/softball equipment to the respective EMCC tryouts, including gloves, cleats, bats and helmets. Catchers are asked to bring their own catching gear as well.
Information on EMCC’s upcoming baseball and softball tryouts, as well as summer camp information, can be accessed online at http://athletics.eastms.edu.
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 01 May 2012 )
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