RAYMOND — Four years ago, Michael Busby led Porters Chapel Academy to a state title. On Saturday, Busby led another Eagles club to a state title as Hinds Community College took home the Mississippi Association of Community and Junior Colleges championship.

As an added reward, Hinds (30-19) will host the National Junior College Athletic Association’s Division II Region 23 Tournament at Joe Moss Field. The Eagles will take on Pearl River (26-27) in today’s second game at 6:30. The tournament opens with a 3 p.m. game between third ranked LSU-Eunice (43-11) and East Central (38-17). The double-elimination tournament continues Friday and Saturday, with the winner advancing to the NJCAA’s Division II World Series.

Busby said winning a title for Hinds is pretty special considering the path he took to get there. He spent two years at Mississippi State as a member of the Bulldog bullpen. He saw a good amount of action in his freshman season, but a major arm injury ended his sophomore year. After getting a medical redshirt, Busby restarted his career at Hinds as an every day player at first base. He’s loved the transition.

“It’s been wonderful. Coming from being a once-a-week player to one who’s out there every day has been great. It was an awesome feeling to have won a state championship in high school, but I have to say it’s better to have won one in college,” Busby said.

Hinds coach Sam Temple can relate. He directed Warren Central to the Class 5A state title in 2001. Now in his fourth season at Hinds, he can add a MACJC title to his mantle.

“You try and set goals that you feel that you are able to achieve, but it’s an unbelievable feeling to do it for our players, staff, fans and our program. To bring it home for our school is special,” Temple said.

Hinds didn’t look like they would get there at midseason. The Eagles had trouble scoring runs and were wasting good efforts from their pitching staff.

“The thing I’ve learned about college baseball is that the season is a marathon. There are different paths. We were a team that had a really good pitching staff and played good defense. We just didn’t score many runs,” Temple said.

Another factor was the loaded South Division.

“The parity in our side of the league was amazing this year. Just look what happened in the playoffs. We had a best-of-three with a third seed from north and all four of the south seeds won. So last weekend, we had four south teams in the state tournament,” Temple said.

The Eagles defeated season-long nemesis East Central 12-9 and 11-7 to claim the title. The two teams had split four regular season meetings.

“The big thing for us is that we got seasoned and we finally got settled with our lineup,” Temple said.

“It was a gradual process, but by putting ourselves into game situations, we got better. It’s no accident, we’ve become really good. We’re a totally different team than we were earlier in the year,” Busby said.

Busby, a University of Alabama-Birmingham signee, has been a mainstay of the Eagles’ order.

Busby has batted. 324 with 34 RBIs and 33 runs scored. The run total ranks second on the team and he is third in RBIs.

Former Vicksburg standout Tyler Wells has come on in the second half of the season.

“Tyler has been hot in the second half and he now starts either in right field or at catcher,” Temple said.

Wells, a Northeastern Oklahoma signee, is now hitting .232.

Another Gator, Trey Prentiss, has had some moments as well.

“Trey had four hits in a series at Gulf Coast. We haven’t been able to get him in the lineup of late because teams have run a lot of lefties against us,” Temple said.

Hinds will go on the mound with either Fraser Adams (7-3, 5.59 ERA), Brent Gay (6-3, 5.18 ERA) or Ryan Nance (5-3, 4.88) against Pearl River.

LSU-Eunice comes in with some stout pitching led by ace Chance Mistric (11-0, 3.07 ERA, 90 strikeouts) and Tony Dischler (8-3, 3.24 ERA, 59 strikeouts).