| EMCC Lions battle back to earn home baseball doubleheader split with division foe Mississippi Delta |
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SCOOBA – The Lions of East Mississippi Community College battled back to claim a 9-3 nightcap decision and earn an MACJC North Division baseball doubleheader split with Mississippi Delta Community College Tuesday evening at EMCC’s Gerald Poole Field. The visiting Trojans claimed the opener with a 7-2 victory over EMCC.
Following a rain shower between games, the home-standing Lions took an immediate 1-0 lead on first-inning doubles by Leroy Wilson and Tyler Bonaventure. After the two teams traded solo tallies in the second on respective sacrifice flies, EMCC did some two-out damage in the third to knock out starting Delta pitcher Luke Morman. After Morman struck out the first two batters of the inning, Bonaventure walked and Austin Braddock smashed a double down the left-field line to set up Holden Watts’ clutch, two-run single up the middle. As the Lions scored two more runs in the fourth with the aid of a pair of MDCC errors, EMCC starting pitcher Smokey Ethridge left the game with a 6-1 lead after the fourth inning. A freshman right-hander from West Lauderdale High School, Ethridge allowed just one run on four hits while striking out four and walking three in improving his team-best mark to 4-2 on the year. Sophomore right-hander Blake Roberts replaced Ethridge on the mound to start the fifth and pitched three effective innings in relief to pick up his second save of the season. Roberts did run into some trouble in the sixth inning when a lead-off double by Cole Lee and a subsequent walk led to a pair of Delta runs. However, the former New Hope High School standout got out of the inning with minimal damage after a double-play ball and a strikeout. Scoring runs in all but one inning (fifth), the Lions got back those two runs plus one in the bottom of the sixth on Wilson’s two-run triple to the right-center field gap. He would later score the game’s final run by racing home on a wild pitch. The former Columbus High School product finished the nightcap 3-for-4 at the plate with three runs batted in and two runs scored. In Tuesday’s opener, the Lions got off to a very sluggish start as four walks, three singles and six stolen bases by the visitors helped mount a 5-0 Delta lead through the first two innings. After plating an unearned run in the second, the lone bright spot offensively for EMCC in game one came on Bonaventure’s lead-off solo blast – his third of the year – in the fourth inning off MDCC’s Eric Brozovich. A freshman right-hander, Brozovich earned the complete-game victory for the Trojans, scattering five hits over seven innings while fanning four and walking two. Delta pushed across solo runs in the fourth and sixth innings to help his cause and account for the 7-2 final tally. The Lions used five pitchers in game one with starter Corbin Johnson taking the loss and falling to 0-2 on the year. Dillon Hawkins went 2.1 innings in relief while Tyler Jones, Blake Hutcheson and Tyler Thomas equally divided the final three innings of mound work. Coach Chris Rose’s EMCC Lions, 12-17 overall and 3-8 in MACJC North Division, play, stay at home to play host to the Bulldogs of Holmes Community College Friday afternoon in a 2 p.m. doubleheader at Gerald Poole Field on the Scooba campus. |
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| Last Updated ( Wednesday, 04 April 2012 ) |
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