| EMCC Lady Lions return home to earn softball doubleheader split against Northeast Mississippi |
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SCOOBA – In their first home softball action since March 6, the Lady Lions of East Mississippi Community College earned a MACJC North Division doubleheader split with visiting Northeast Mississippi Community College by holding on for a 4-2 win in Monday afternoon’s nightcap after dropping an 8-3 decision in the opener.
Battling back from defensive woes in the opener, EMCC took advantage of three Northeast errors in game two. Though being out-hit 6-5 in the nightcap, the Lady Lions pushed across solo runs in the first and third innings to take an early 2-0 lead. In the first inning, New Hope’s Haley Tutor walked, moved up on Paige Sheppard’s single and later scored on a wild pitch from Northeast starter Erin Dixson. Two frames later, Allison Hauer and Amber Spann opened the third with consecutive singles. Hauer would later plate EMCC’s second run on a double-steal. As EMCC freshman starter Stevie Wilson was coasting along in the circle by allowing the visitors just three singles through the first five innings, the Lady Lions would double their run total with a pair of tallies in the bottom of the fifth to move ahead 4-0. Spann, a former Clarkdale standout, got things started with a double to the right-center field gap. She came around to score on Tutor’s grounder to first that was thrown errantly to third base in an attempt to get Spann across the diamond. Sheppard, a former Southeast Lauderdale product, followed with a run-scoring single to right field. The Lady Tigers got on the scoreboard for the first time in game two with three singles in the sixth inning. Following Ellen Tarrant’s one-out, RBI single that drove home Andrea Cutts, Wilson settled down to retire the next two Northeast batters heading to the dramatic final inning. In the seventh, Wilson was replaced in the circle by game one starter Shelby Sheppard after allowing a one-out walk to Raleigh Downs. Sheppard got Haley Knepp to ground out for the second out of the inning, but that’s when things got interesting. On the heels of committing five errors in game one, the Lady Lions didn’t commit a defensive miscue in the nightcap until they were down to needing one final out. Back-to-back fielding errors in the EMCC infield allowed Downs to score Northeast’s second run and ultimately put the potential tying runs in scoring position. However, Sheppard got game one winner Jaisa Fox to ground out to third base on a full-count pitch to seal the 4-2 win and salvage the doubleheader split for the home team. Wilson, from Bessemer Academy in Alabama, improved her record to 4-8 on the year after scattering six Northeast singles over 6.1 innings of work before being relieved by Sheppard. Spann and Paige Sheppard led the Lady Lions with two hits apiece in the nightcap. Spann also had a seventh-inning single in the opener. In game one, EMCC broke a scoreless tie with three runs off Fox in the fourth inning, capped by Logan Bozeman’s two-out, two-run single that followed Cortnee Meyers’ sun-aided, run-scoring single to left field. However, the lead was short-lived as the Lady Lions committed four costly errors in the top of the fifth that contributed to Northeast’s six-run inning. With the Lady Lions managing but one single over the final three frames off Fox, the visitors added two insurance runs in the seventh to account for the 8-3 final in the opener. Coach Kate Neely’s EMCC Lady Lions, now 11-20 overall and 5-9 in division play, return to the road to meet division-leading Itawamba in a 3 p.m. doubleheader Wednesday in Fulton. EMCC will close out the week by making up a road doubleheader against Holmes Friday at noon in Goodman. |
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| Last Updated ( Tuesday, 03 April 2012 ) |
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