| EMCC baseball team swept at home by Northeast in Saturday divisional twinbill |
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SCOOBA – Despite a valiant late-game comeback attempt in the opener, the East Mississippi baseball team was swept by visiting Northeast Mississippi, 14-13 in eight innings and 8-4, in divisional doubleheader action Saturday afternoon at Gerald Poole Field on the Scooba campus.
Trailing 10-2 and managing only two hits through the first five innings of the first contest, EMCC erupted for nine runs on seven hits in the sixth inning to take a brief 11-10 lead. With their first eight batters of the inning reaching base safely, including two costly errors by the Northeast infield, the Lions sent 14 hitters to the plate in the sixth. Sophomore Drew Vaughan’s second hit of the inning and third of the game tied the game at 10-all, while freshman Tyler Aldridge’s sacrifice fly to center field gave EMCC the go-ahead run. However, East Mississippi’s third error of the contest proved costly in the top of the seventh, as sophomore shortstop Brandon Kiewel’s throw on Justin Smith’s ground ball pulled first baseman Hilton Gibson off the bag to allow courtesy runner Lee Griffin to cross the plate with two outs and force the opener into an extra frame. In the top of the eighth, the Tigers reached EMCC’s Justin Pritchett for a pair of hits to begin the extra inning. After a pitching change, Northeast’s Ben Wallis greeted reliever Matt Wigington – the Lions’ fifth hurler of the game – with a two-run, stand-up triple to the left-center field gap. Will Wallis followed with a run-scoring single to left for the would-be game-winner. In their half of the eighth, the Lions struck quickly with a lead-off home run to left by Gibson to make it a 14-12 contest. Following back-to-back singles by Aldridge and David Williams, sophomore Derek Beach stroked a two-out RBI single to the opposite field off NEMCC reliever Jordan Gurley to score Aldridge. However, with runners on first and second, sophomore Alex Lummus struck out to end the ballgame. In Saturday’s nightcap, the Lions staked starting pitcher Beach to an early 4-1 lead with a four-run second inning. The lead did not last for long, as the visitors answered with their own four-run frame in the top of the third, including a two-run round-tripper by Michael Collie. The Tigers knocked out Beach with two more tallies in the fourth on an RBI double by Brandon Farley and a run-producing single by Collie. With the Lions managing only two singles over the last five innings, Northeast doubled the advantage to 8-4 in the sixth on a triple by Farley, who scored on a throwing error from the outfield in an attempt to hit the cut-off man. With a home run in the opener, Farley capped a 4-for-4 outing at the plate in the nightcap, including three runs scored and a pair of RBI, by coming in to record the last three outs of the contest in relief of Brett Morgan. After a lead-off walk by EMCC freshman Randy Frederick, Farley got Lummus to pop up to short and promptly fanned both Vaughan and Gibson to secure the sweep for the Tigers. After banging out 14 hits in the opener, including five players with multiple hits, East Mississippi could muster but five hits in the second contest. Beach, from Heidelberg Academy, was tagged with the loss in the nightcap after giving up seven runs on 10 hits in 3.2 innings of work. Freshman Lance Portera, from West Point’s Oak Hill Academy, was impressive in relief, allowing just an unearned run and two hits over the final 3.1 innings. Falling to 15-9 overall and evening their division mark at 2-2, head coach Tony Montgomery’s EMCC Lions continue divisional play at home by playing host to Itawamba on Wednesday (March 24). Doubleheader action is set to begin at 3 p.m. on the Scooba campus. |
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| Last Updated ( Sunday, 21 March 2010 ) |
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