No. 14 EMCC set to host Mississippi Delta in best-of-three MACJC baseball playoff series this weekend

SCOOBA – On the heels of their regular season-ending road sweep over Mississippi Delta Community College on Monday, the 14^th-ranked Lions of East Mississippi Community College will entertain the same MDCC ballclub during this weekend's MACJC best-of-three baseball playoff series in Scooba. 

Friday's series opener between seventh-seeded Mississippi Delta and the MACJC's regular-season runners-up is set for 7 p.m. at EMCC's Gerald Poole Field.  Game 2 is set for a 2 p.m. first pitch on Saturday and will be followed immediately by a third and deciding game if necessary.  This weekend's EMCC-MDCC baseball games are slated to be live video-streamed via www.EMCCAthletics.com/live.

 After sweeping Monday in Moorhead by final scores of 5-2 and 11-1, head coach Chris Rose's East Mississippi Lions enter postseason play sporting a 26-14 overall record and 20-8 regular-season MACJC mark.  The MDCC Trojans concluded the regular season 20-25 overall and 14-14 in league play.

The other MACJC best-of-three baseball playoff series this weekend will have nationally top-ranked and first-place Hinds (23-5) hosting No. 8 seed Southwest Mississippi (13-15), third-place Northwest Mississippi (19-9) playing host to sixth-seeded Jones County (17-11) and No. 5 seed East Central (18-10) traveling to fourth-seeded Meridian (19-9).

The four winners of this weekend's best-of-three playoff series will advance to next week's (May 7-9) MACJC State Baseball Tournament.  Slated to begin Thursday (May 7), the four-team, double-elimination state tournament will be played on the campus site of the highest-seeded remaining team following the best-of-three playoff series.

Earlier this week at Mississippi Delta, the visiting Lions totaled 27 hits and allowed just one earned run in posting their seventh MACJC doubleheader sweep of the year and finishing the regular season as league runners-up.

In Monday's opening game in Moorhead, both teams scored a pair of early runs and battled through a 2-2 deadlock until the final frame of the scheduled nine-inning contest.  In the top of the ninth following five consecutive scoreless innings by both teams, EMCC freshman Emil Ellis broke the tie with a two-run single with the bases loaded.  Former New Hope standout Taylor Stafford followed with an RBI single to make it a three-run contest.

In relief of starting EMCC pitcher J'Daylin Jackson, freshman right-hander Layton Dill held Delta in check over the final five scoreless innings by scattering four hits with three strikeouts and two walks.  The Madison Central High School product improved to 3-1 on the year with the victory.

Offensively for East Mississippi during Monday's first game at Delta, slugger David Pimentel paced the Lions' 14-hit team effort with a 3-for-4 outing at the plate, while Ellis, Drew Standland and Dylan Vuncannon added two hits apiece.  

Continuing his torrid hitting pace, Pimentel added three more hits in the nightcap, including solo home runs in his first two at-bats to give the freshman first baseman seven homers and 22 RBIs over his last nine games.  The Nashville native enters postseason play tied for eighth nationally among the NJCAA Division II statistical leaders with an MACJC-leading 13 home runs, which stand as the most for an EMCC player since Brad Montgomery's 15 long balls during the 2000 campaign.

After out-hitting the Trojans, 14-6, in the opener, EMCC owned a 13-4 hit advantage in the nightcap.  The Lions scored every inning against Delta in Game 2 with solo tallies in the first and third as well as three-run frames in the second, fourth and fifth during the abbreviated run-ruled contest.

The first game's hitting hero for the winners, Ellis added two more hits in the second contest as did freshman teammates JoVaughn McNabb and Corley Reynolds.

On the mound for the Lions, sophomore right-hander Andrew Crane, of Pascagoula, improved to 5-1 on the year and 11-2 for his EMCC career by allowing only four singles and an unearned run with a strikeout and a walk over the first four innings.