By Staff
This is the first of a five-part series looking at past Meridian Community College baseball teams that have taken part in the Junior College World Series in Grand Junction, Colo.
By Austin Bishop / EMG regional sports director
May 21, 2003
Any talk of the 1993 Meridian Community College baseball team has to begin with one name David Steed.
Steed got hot at the end of the season and literally drug the Eagles through the postseason as they made their first-ever trip to the Junior College World Series.
He put together an amazing streak of 10 consecutive games with at least one RBI, with eight of those coming in the postseason. He was named to the Junior College World Series All-Tournament team for his efforts and later signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers organization.
The 1993 team won only one game in Grand Junction, but finished the season with a 45-12 record and put MCC on the national junior college baseball map.
But get in is exactly what the 1993 team did. And it did it the hard way.
That squad didn't even win the Miss-Lou Conference title and almost didn't make the Region 23 Tournament.
At that time the Region 23 event was a four-team event and only one Miss-Lou team was guaranteed a spot. The runner-up had to play one of the MACJC teams to make the tournament.
After the Eagles had lost a dramatic one-game playoff against Delgado to lose the conference title, MCC had to turn right around and travel to Pearl River Community College.
After falling behind 3-0, MCC went on to win that game 15-7.
Then Steed and the Eagles caught fire.
MCC posted 9-0, 9-1 and 8-2 wins in the Region 23 Tournament, then hosted the three-team Eastern District Tournament.
The Eagles kept on rolling, cruising past Spartanburg (S.C.) Methodist and Columbia (Tenn.) State by the scores of 9-8, 13-5, 13-11.
That's when luck started working against MCC a little.
The Eagles drew the eventual National Champions in the form of Galveston (Texas) College.
MCC fell behind early, but rallied to tie the game at 3-3 in the eighth, only to have the Whitecaps rally to take a 6-3 win.
Meridian had its hands full in the second game as well, but Steed and his teammates rallied to win that game over the College of Southern Idaho by the score of 5-4.
It was Steed who stroked a game-tying double in the ninth inning, then was followed two batters later by a run-scoring infield single by Jermaine Walton to put the Eagles ahead.
Meridian was eliminated the next day when Indian River Community College jumped out to a 5-0 lead then held on for the 5-3 win.
Steed, the team's catcher, led MCC at the plate with a .374 batting average, 12 homers and 63 RBIs.
Walton and former West Lauderdale standout Cary Luke both hit .324 for that team, while Zack Watts had eight homers.
There were also some good pitching on the team as Brad Talley posted an 11-3 mark and then-freshman Bill Cornish had a record of 7-3.
Relief ace Brian Temple had four saves and a team-best ERA of 1.65.