EMCC Lions continue busy pace on the diamond with 8-6 win over East Central

MERIDIAN – Having played seven games in a recent eight-day span, the East Mississippi Community College baseball team begins the month of March with a 9-6 overall record after earning an 8-6 win over East Central and dropping a narrow 3-2 decision to preseason ninth-ranked Meridian during Tuesday's action played at MCC's Scaggs Field.

Head coach Brett Kimbrel's EMCC Lions will continue getting ready for the start of MACCC competition by beginning the new month with consecutive home-and-home doubleheaders against Lawson State Community College this weekend (March 3-4). On the heels of a Friday twin bill slated to start at noon in Birmingham, the Lions and Cougars are then scheduled to get back together the following day for a Saturday doubleheader set for a noon first pitch at Gerald Poole Field on the Scooba campus.

EMCC opened the week with a non-conference Tuesday twin bill against MACCC foes Meridian and East Central. Following a tough 3-2 setback to the Eagles on a walk-off infield throwing error by the Lions, EMCC battled back to take an early 4-0 lead over the Warriors in the day's middle game. With the Lions scoring a pair of runs in each of the first two frames, Carson Gault's first-inning, two-run single was followed a frame later by Jon Paul Yates' run-scoring groundout and Evan Radford's team-leading fifth home run of the season.

The Warriors knotted the score at 4-4 with a solo tally in the second inning and three more scores in the fourth to knock EMCC starting pitcher Austin Garrison out of the game. The big blow in the fourth inning for ECCC was Leighton Jenkins' two-out, two-run double.

The two teams then traded solo runs in the fifth and sixth innings to keep the game tied heading into the final frame. Radford, a Southern Miss transfer by way of Hoover, Ala., led off the fifth inning with a double and later scored on Will Crawford's two-out single. Radford then capped his 4-for-4 effort at the plate by driving home Cooper Garrison, who opened the sixth with a single.

After East Central answered by plating game-tying solo runs in the home half of both innings, EMCC freshman Ayden Alsobrooks led off the seventh with a triple for his second hit of the game. He later came around to score the go-ahead run. The Lions were able to push across another run in the frame before Alsobrooks took to the mound in relief of eventual winning pitcher Landon Scruggs. Alsobrooks, a Starkville Academy product, worked out of some early-inning trouble to retire the next three batters in preserving EMCC's 8-6 victory and notch his first collegiate save.

The previous week against Wallace-Selma in a game played Saturday (Feb. 25) at Shelton State in Tuscaloosa, Alsobrooks displayed his two-way ability by hitting a walk-off homer – his first as a collegian – to cap a 2-for-3 effort at the plate and secure a 3-2 victory for the Lions.

In Tuesday's opening game versus Meridian, the Lions got on the board first when Radford's RBI double brought home Coby Holmes. The Eagles promptly answered in the bottom half of the frame with Rhett Ketchum's two-run homer off EMCC starter Brandon King.

King, a freshman right-hander from Hancock, then settled down to limit Meridian to only one more hit over the next 5.2 shutout innings. Meanwhile, the Lions got King off the hook by tying the score at 2-2 on Alsobrooks' two-out RBI double that scored Zack Griffith in the sixth inning.

After Meridian reliever Landon Waters retired the Lions in order in the top of the seventh, the Eagles reached EMCC reliever Turner Leathers in the home half for a leadoff walk and subsequent bunt singles that pushed across the winning run on an errant infield throw.