| EMCC Lions even division baseball mark with home sweep of Coahoma |
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SCOOBA – The East Mississippi Lions reached the 20-win mark and evened their divisional baseball record by sweeping Coahoma, 11-3 and 7-1, Saturday afternoon at Gerald Poole Field on the Scooba campus.
With EMCC improving to 20-14 overall and 7-7 in MACJC North Division play, Lion hurlers limited visiting Coahoma to just seven total hits and combined for 23 strikeouts during the doubleheader sweep. In Saturday’s opener, the Lions jumped out to a quick 3-0 lead when Hilton Gibson hit a two-run triple to the opposite field and later scored on Tyler Aldridge’s groundout. Following a two-run third, EMCC added three more scores in the fourth, including a sacrifice fly by Randy Frederick, to make it an 8-1 contest. Coahoma got its first run of the game in the top half of the fourth when Adrian Lee tripled to open the inning and later scored on J’Darrion Jackson’s infield groundout. EMCC starter Kameron Heiser seemed to be cruising along after getting the first two Tiger hitters in the fifth to ground out. However, the freshman pitcher walked the next two batters and then loaded the bases by hitting Demarcus Rieves with a pitch. Lee followed with a two-run single to left for his third hit of the contest. Heiser was then lifted for left-handed reliever Jose Acosta after walking Broadis Toles. The Lions proceeded to get those two runs back in the home half of the fifth, aided by Derek Beach’s RBI double to the opposite field. EMCC tacked on another run in the sixth to account for the 11-3 final when Brandon Kiewel singled home Gibson, who had led off the inning with a double. Gibson, a former New Hope High School standout, went 2-for-4 in the opener with three runs batted in and two runs scored. A sophomore from Heidelberg Academy, Beach was 2-for-3 with two runs scored and an RBI. Heiser improved to a team-leading 5-1 on the mound, as the former West Lauderdale product allowed four hits, while striking out six and walking four, over 4.2 innings of work. Acosta went 1.1 innings and Matt Wigington nailed down the opening-game win by working a scoreless seventh. In the nightcap, the Lions benefitted from three Coahoma miscues, two hit batsmen, two bases on balls and a wild pitch to score five times in the second on only one hit. The visitors used two of their three hits in the contest to produce their lone score in the top of the third. A two-out single by Lee was followed by another single by Rieves that scored Lee when EMCC right fielder Alex Lummus threw errantly to third base in an attempt to get the lead runner. EMCC promptly got the run back in the bottom of the third when Kiewel raced home on a wild pitch after drawing a two-out walk and moving to third on Beach’s double. Gibson completed a 3-for-6 afternoon at the plate – all extra-base hits – with a run-scoring sacrifice fly in the sixth for the final run of the nightcap. Meanwhile on the mound for the Lions, sophomore right-hander Corey Luke returned to the hill following an injury layoff to produce five very effective innings. The former Philadelphia High School product fanned 11 Coahoma batters, while walking three and allowing just the pair of third-inning singles, in picking up his first win of the campaign. Sophomore Tyler Richardson came in to contribute two shutout innings, allowing just a seventh-inning single to Robert O’Neal while striking out four and issuing a pair of walks. Head coach Tony Montgomery’s EMCC Lions will play a trio of road doubleheaders during the coming week, sandwiching a Wednesday non-divisional twin bill at Wallace Community College Selma between a Tuesday set at Northeast Mississippi and a Saturday doubleheader at Itawamba. |
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| Last Updated ( Sunday, 11 April 2010 ) |
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