Jake Mangum wins 2019 C Spire Ferriss Trophy as state’s Top College Baseball Player

Mississippi State outfielder Jake Mangum, one of the best players in the history of college baseball and a tough, gritty competitor who became the Southeastern Conference’s (SEC) all-time hits leader earlier this year, won the C Spire Ferriss Trophy Monday as the Magnolia state’s best college baseball player.

Mangum, one of the top players in all of Division 1 baseball who finished the season with a .375 batting average, 95 hits, 20 doubles, 39 RBI and 21 stolen bases, was selected over teammate and pitcher Ethan Small, third baseman Tyler Keenan and shortstop Grae Kessinger of Ole Miss and Southern Miss outfielder Matt Wallner to win the 2019 award.

The players and coaches were honored at a special awards luncheon co-hosted by C Spire and the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame and Museum in Jackson. Former Bulldog and long-time Major League Baseball manager “Buck” Showalter was the guest speaker at the sold-out awards ceremony.

Mangum, a three-time finalist and senior from Jackson, Miss., is the seventh Mississippi State student-athlete to win the coveted award and the first player in the trophy’s 16-year history to win the award twice in his college career against what was one of the strongest finalist fields. He previously won the award in 2016 as a freshman.

Southern Miss pitcher Nick Sandlin won the award last year and Mississippi State outfielder Brent Rooker was selected in 2017. The award is named after the late Dave “Boo” Ferriss, a Magnolia state baseball legend, a Boston Red Sox Hall of Famer and a long-time Delta State head baseball coach.

Mississippi State head baseball coach Chris Lemonis said Mangum has helped the No.5 nationally-ranked Diamond Dawgs post their second-best season in team history with 45 wins, including a share of the Western Division title and a 20-10 overall mark in the SEC. “Jake is a huge part of our success, a superstar who practices, plays and competes at the highest leve,” Lemonis said.

Voters for the C Spire Ferriss Trophy included Major League Baseball scouts who cover Mississippi in their territory and Mississippi’s college baseball coaches. For the sixth time in the award’s history, a weighted 10 percent of the final vote came from fan voting conducted by C Spire, which ended on Saturday.

Mangum also won the fan voting portion of the award with 3,923 votes. Over 8,500 votes were cast online for the five finalists during the six-day fan voting period, the third highest total since fan voting started in 2014. Small finished second with 2,273, Kessinger finished third with 1,841 while Keenan received 302 and Wallner, a two-time finalist, garnered 244 votes.

2019 marks the 24th anniversary of the Outstanding Player Awards Program. C Spire has served as title sponsor for 22 of those years since 1998. The Conerly Trophy in college football, the Howell Trophy in men’s college basketball, the Gillom Trophy in women’s college basketball and the Ferriss Trophy in college baseball comprise the four elements of the C Spire Outstanding Player Award series, which are jointly presented by the company and the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame.

“This was an exciting year for Mississippi college baseball with two of our teams nationally ranked and several in post-season play. For its size, our state has some of the best baseball talent in the world and today’s finalists were a shining example of that fact,” said Jim Richmond, vice president of Marketing for C Spire. “Our congratulations go out to all the players, their families, the schools and teams who were honored today.”

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