EMCC baseball trio earns All-MACCC honorable mention recognition

JACKSON – East Mississippi Community College's top three batting average leaders from this past season – sophomores Jon Paul Yates, Evan Radford and Ayden Alsobrooks – have all earned honorable mention recognition on the 2024 All-MACCC Baseball Team, as announced this week by the Mississippi Association of Community Colleges Conference office.

The 15-member first and second all-conference baseball teams plus 16 honorable mention picks were selected by the MACCC's head baseball coaches.

Yates, who has plans to attend Arkansas State University, posted the sixth-best batting average (.417) against MACCC regular-season competition and hit safely in 21 of 27 conference games played this past season to lead the 30-22 EMCC Lions with his .320 overall average in all games. Having developed into the team's starting third baseman and leadoff hitter in the lineup, Yates also topped this year's squad with 17 stolen bases while finishing second on the club with 31 bases on balls and a .473 on-base percentage. The former Tupelo Christian Preparatory School standout also finished 2024 with seven home runs and 38 runs scored for EMCC to rank fourth in each category.

Radford, a Southern Miss bounceback who is heading to the University of Montevallo in Alabama, led (or tied) this year's EMCC team in home runs (10), runs batted in (47), runs scored (45), hits (54), total bases (100), and slugging percentage (.568) while dividing playing time at first base and as a designated hitter. The Hoover, Alabama product batted .308 during his two EMCC seasons (.307 this past year), with his 22 career home runs ranking second on the Lions' list for most career homers dating back to the mid-1980s. Radford also stands fourth with 87 career RBIs as well as 188 career total bases on EMCC's lists over that same time span.

Alsobrooks, a two-year starter in the Lions' outfield who has signed with Arkansas State University, batted .305 as an EMCC sophomore while leading the team with eight triples and tying for the club lead with 10 doubles as part of his 23 extra-base hits. Along with ranking second on this year's EMCC squad in RBIs (38), hits (50), total bases (91), and slugging percentage (.555), Alsobrooks' 11 career triples tie him with 2017 Major League Baseball draft pick Marcus Ragan for the most three-baggers by an EMCC player going back to the mid-1980s. A product of Picayune and a former prep standout at Starkville Academy, Alsobrooks' 39 career extra-base hits for the Lions also include 21 doubles and seven home runs.    

The trio of Yates, Radford and Alsobrooks headlined an EMCC baseball sophomore class under the guidance of head coach Brett Kimbrel that put together a two-year composite overall record of 54-48 to mark the Lions' winningest graduating group since their 2015 baseball sophomore class. On the heels of the program's first 30-win season in 10 years, the Lions have now made postseason baseball appearances during each of the last three seasons.  

Both the 15-member first and second teams of this year's All-MACCC Baseball Team were comprised of four infielders, four outfielders, four pitchers, two designated hitters, and one catcher.

Individual MACCC baseball honors for the 2024 season were awarded to Pearl River's Hollis Porter for Player of the Year, East Central's Luke Cooley for Pitcher of the Year, and PRCC's Michael Avalon for Coach of the Year.