By Robert Wilson
Jackson Academy hasn’t won a state baseball championship since 2011, the longest drought since the school started a high school baseball program in the early 1980s.
First-year JA coach Corey Dickerson wants to end that streak and has gotten his Raiders off to a great start this season.
The former 11-year major league outfielder has put together a staff of experienced coaches, has a couple of high-profile transfers, and the returning players have made tremendous improvement over the short time Dickerson has been in charge at the Northeast Jackson school.
JA has a 11-2 record, is riding a nine-game winning streak and won four games this week at the Battle of the Beach on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. JA’s only two losses this season have been to six-time defending MAIS Class 5A state champion Magnolia Heights, considered not only one of the best teams in Mississippi, but one of the best teams in the South.
Another former major league player – 13-year veteran pitcher Jay Powell – led JA to its last state title in 2011 and a 29-8 record. JA has a history of good baseball coaches and success, winning five more state titles – the late Sherard Shaw (1985), Keith Case (1986), Steve Renfrow (1992), Tom Luke (1999), and Trey Pace (2002), before Powell – now the pitching coach at Jackson Prep – took over and became the winningest coach in JA history with 246 wins from 2008-2019.
The best record since then was Powell’s 2018 team that finished 25-12. Parker Harris took over for Powell in 2020 and Dickerson replaced Harris this summer.
The Raiders’ best season under Harris (now assistant football and baseball coach at Canton Academy) was when Dakota Jordan – former Mississippi State All-American outfielder and Mississippi Gatorade Player of the Year and this year’s fourth round pick by the San Francisco Giants – led JA to 21-14 season and the MAIS Class 6A semifinals in 2022. JA finished with a 13-20-1 record and in fifth place in the six team Class 6A conference this past spring.
Dickerson is trying to make a run at seven-time defending state champion Jackson Prep this spring. Even though Konnor Griffin – one of the best players in Mississippi history and the No. 9 overall pick in the Major League Baseball Draft this summer – is now playing pro baseball, it will be a tall order to defeat Prep, which has five returning starters and is ranked No. 26 in the country by Perfect Game.
JA has definitely showed signs of improvement and promise for the rest of the season. JA opens conference play March 25 with a three-game series against 2024 6A runner-up Presbyterian Christian School. The Raiders will play five conference series, finishing the regular season with Prep April 23-25.
“There are so many guys that have performed well,” Dickerson said. “More importantly, I’m proud of their overall improvement as ball players. Tripp Mosal has been a general from behind the plate. He makes every one of our pitchers better and confident in their stuff. Foster Meacham has always been known for his competitiveness. But now he’s applying the fundamentals to his game and he’s turning into all around great player and leader for us. Jed Rodden is a freshman that has a demeanor of a college player. He’s fearless and when he plays the game everyone leaves with something to say about him. Justin Word has been an ultimate competitor and gamer for us. He’s applied every little detail our staff has taught him. It’s hard to believe he’s only a junior. Deuce Jenkins has been so versatile and a presence for us. He makes our lineup and defense better wherever you put him. He’s someone you travel to come see.”
Dickerson, a former MLB All-Star, was, too. He played in the major leagues for 11 seasons for eight teams. He last played for the Washington Nationals during the 2023 season. He was an eighth-round draft pick by the Colorado Rockies in 2010. Dickerson made his major league debut in 2013 (he hit two doubles in his first game), was an MLB All-Star in 2017 and won a Gold Glove in 2018.
Dickerson ranked No. 10 in the American League with a career-high 36 doubles with the Tampa Bay Rays in 2016. Voted as an all-star as a designated hitter, Dickerson had a career-high 27 home runs for the Rays in 2017. In 2018 with the Pittsburgh Pirates, Dickerson had the highest fielding percentage among major league leftfielders and won a Gold Glove award.
He finished with .280 batting average in his MLB career – a high of .312 in 2014 with the Rockies in his second MLB season – and hit 136 home runs during his MLB career.
Dickerson set school records with a .591 batting average, 15 home runs and 55 runs batted in as a senior at Brookhaven Academy and hit 45 home runs in his four-year high school career.
He was a volunteer assistant coach for Madison-Ridgeland Academy this past season.
“Our staff has been fun to work with,” Dickerson said. “They get the absolute most of each individual on our team. They have a way of teaching details of the game that is high level. Most kids don’t learn what these kids are learning until they get to college.”
The stats are outstanding. JA is hitting .331 as a team with .416 on base percentage and a .458 slugging percentage with 16 doubles and eight home runs. The Raiders have a 2.02 team earned run average.
Meacham, a senior outfielder, leads the team with a .475 batting average and 15 runs batted in. Five other players are hitting .300 or better (junior shortstop and St. Andrew’s transfer Justin Word .425, sophomore outfielder Parker Orr .412, senior catcher Tripp Mosal .389, sophomore outfielder/first baseman and Northwest Rankin transfer Deuce Jenkins .368, and junior outfielder and Clinton transfer Landyn Baker .368). Word and Jenkins are tied with the team lead with 16 runs scored and have 14 and 11 runs batted in respectively. Jenkins leads the team with three home runs and Word has two. Word leads the team with 16 stolen bases. Junior courtesy runner John Walt Holloway has 11 stolen bases. Seven players have an on base percentage of at least .400, led by Meacham at .543, Word at .511 and Jenkins at .500. Four players have at least a .600 slugging percentage, led by Orr at .765.
Meacham has a team-high three pitching victories. Five pitchers have an ERA of 2.10 or less (sophomore Whit Davis, 1.40, Meacham, 1.47, Jenkins 1.54, freshman Jed Rodden 1.58 and Orr 2.10). Rodden, who has a team-high two saves, has a remarkable strikeout to walk ratio with 19 strikeouts and only one walk in 13 1/3 innings.
JA received contributions from a number of players as the Raiders won four straight games at the Battle of the Beach this past week. Mosal had three hits in a 6-4 victory over MHSAA Class 2A Hatley, Jenkins pitched a complete game and allowed only three hits and one run in a 3-1 win over Montgomery Bell (Tenn.) Academy, Orr had two hits and four RBIs in a 11-3 victory over Northpoint Christian and Meacham hit a game-tying home run and junior Matthew Werne had a game-winning, RBI single in an 8-7 win over MHSAA Class 4A Tishomingo County.
Jenkins and Word are two of the top players in Mississippi in their respective classes.
Jenkins is rated as the No. 1 best player in Mississippi and No. 41 in the country in the Class of 2027 by Perfect Game and is the son of former All-State Pearl High, All-SEC Mississippi State and NFL wide receiver Justin Jenkins. He became the first freshman to start for the Northwest Rankin baseball team since 1990 last season when coach KK Aldridge called him up from the junior varsity about a third of the way into the season. He had a .389 batting average with 12 runs scored, 15 runs batted in, 5 doubles, 1 triple, 3 home runs and led the Cougars with a .685 on base percentage in 20 games last season.
Word – a Southern Miss commitment who is rated as the No. 8 best player in Mississippi in the Class of 2026 by Perfect Game – had a .397 batting average and led St. Andrew’s with 51 runs scored, 48 RBIs, 5 triples, 4 home runs, and a .636 slugging percentage and helped the Saints to a 23-7 record and the MHSAA Class 2A state championship last season as a sophomore. He had a 5-0 pitching record and 34 strikeouts in 21 2/3 innings. Word pitched in 10 games, nine in relief.
He was the designated hitter on the second team on the PriorityOne Bank/Mississippi Scoreboard Metro Jackson Team last season. Word was one of four sophomores on the 28-player team.
Dickerson has four assistants who are a combination of former pro baseball players, state high school and state junior college championship players, and Division I and College World Series players.
Josh Rogers, who in charge of pitchers and catchers, won three state championships at Hillcrest Christian School, and played at Southern Miss and Belhaven University. Rogers is well known in the Metro Jackson area as the owner and founder of the Mississippi Yankees, a travel ball organization based out of Madison County and was director of baseball operations of the Madison County Sports Zone in Gluckstadt.
Rogers holds school records at Hillcrest – which has produced many Division I players, including former MLB standout Seth Smith – with single season strikeouts, career strikeouts and pitching victories.
Justin Reed, who is a hitting coach, won a state championship and was the Mississippi Gatorade Player of the Year in 2006 as a senior at Hillcrest Christian. He was a fourth round MLB draft pick by the Cincinnati Reds, played five seasons in the minor leagues and has 15 years of coaching experience. Reed, who also an All-State player at Callaway High before transferring to Hillcrest, has been head coach at Hillcrest for three seasons, and assistant at Callaway for six seasons and Madison St. Joseph for seven seasons. Reed also works with Rogers with the Mississippi Yankees.
AJ Downs, who has a variety of roles both on and off the field, won a state championship at Clarksdale Lee Academy and was an all-conference outfielder at Mississippi Delta Community College and Delta State and coached at Manchester Academy for 10 years.
Josh DeMoney, an All-State outfielder at Madison Central, helped Meridian CC to a state championship, and played at Arkansas State, is working with the hitters. He is well known around Metro Jackson for his knowledge of hitting and has worked with Jackson Prep alumnus Konnor Griffin.
Brian Pettway, a former Ole Miss All-American and All-State outfielder from Warren Central High, is in his third season as the head coach for the junior high program and helps with the high school program. He was a third-round draft pick by the Toronto Blue Jays and played three seasons in the minor leagues. Pettway also coaches and trains with the Mississippi Yankees.
“As a team, we can all agree that the success has come from the mindset we have developed over the past months,” said Mosal, whose father, David, was on the JA state championship team in 1992 and his uncle, Seth, was on the JA state championship team in 1999. “The idea to get the job done no matter what and to make sacrifices for the team to win the game.”
“I think we have gotten off to a hot start because Coach Corey and the entire coaching staff poured into us so much over the fall and it has transferred over to the games,” Jenkins said. “It is all about preparation for us. Each and every one of us has the will to fight and support one another on the team. It’s like when we’re in between the lines, our chemistry clicks. If we continue with the mindset of being dawgs, then we should continue to see success.”
“This year as a team we are just so much closer and not everybody waits around for someone else to do something because they want to be the guy that gets the big hit or makes the big play,” Meacham said. “It also helps having Coach Dickerson in the dugout with us helping us make adjustments and helping us with tips about pitchers.”
