EMCC Lions prevail 9-5 in opener to gain home baseball split against Southwest Mississippi

SCOOBA – The Lions of East Mississippi Community College scored in five of the first six innings during their 9-5 opening-game win of Saturday's MACCC doubleheader split against visiting Southwest Mississippi. The Bears countered with Luke Lirette's three-hit, complete-game 4-0 shutout to take the nightcap at EMCC's Gerald Poole Field.

In the nine-inning opener, EMCC starting pitcher Drake Bayles minimized first-inning damage by allowing Southwest just one run before getting out of a bases-loaded jam. The Lions responded in the home half of the first with Ethan Medlin's two-run homer followed by Austin Garrison's two-out RBI double a frame later to give EMCC a 3-1 lead. Medlin's home run marked his fourth of the year and ninth of his EMCC career.

After the visitors knotted the score at 3-3 by bringing around their leadoff batters to score in the third and fourth innings, EMCC scored during each of the three middle innings to reclaim the lead and extend the margin. A solo tally in the fourth was followed by a pair of runs in the fifth and three more scores in the sixth to lengthen the Lions' lead to 9-3.

Following a 38-minute lightening delay, the Bears cut into the deficit by scoring two runs in the eighth inning on Tyler Otts' two-run double to account for the final score.

At the top of EMCC's lineup, Garrison (3-for-5 w/2 RBIs) and Medlin (2-for-4 w/3 RBIs), combined for five of the Lions' nine hits and likewise paired to drive home five of the team's nine runs scored in the opening game.

Bayles, a freshman right-hander out of Copiah Academy, picked up his team-leading fifth win of the year by scattering six hits and allowing three runs over the first 4.1 innings for the Lions.

The story of the nightcap was Southwest's Lirette, who retired the first 12 batters he faced before allowing a leadoff single to Carson Gault in the fifth inning. The Lions also threatened the next frame with singles from Garrison and Will Crawford, but they were left stranded at the corners by Lirette.

EMCC's starting pitcher Landon Scruggs, the reigning MACCC Pitcher of the Week, was as equally effective through the first five innings. In the sixth, though, the Bears loaded the bases with one out before a mishandled grounder at third base allowed the game's first run to score. Two batters later, Otts' two-out, two-run single made it a 3-0 contest. The visitors then manufactured an insurance run in the seventh when Marcus Jackson had a leadoff double and then came around to score on a pair of wild pitches by reliever Joe Scarborough.

After getting out of a couple of minor jams in the fifth and sixth innings, Lirette retired the side in order in the seventh to finish out his complete-game performance with his sixth victory of the year. The freshman right-hander out of Houma, La., struck out six and walked just one during his three-hit shutout.

Head coach Brett Kimbrel's EMCC Lions (20-22, 8-14 MACCC) are scheduled to conclude their 2023 home baseball slate on Tuesday (April 18) by playing host to Northwest Mississippi in a 2 p.m. doubleheader on the Scooba campus.