EMCC Lions split baseball twinbill at Shelton State in advance of Saturday's MACJC opener at Southwest Mississippi

TUSCALOOSA – The Lions of East Mississippi Community College closed out the non-conference portion of their 2015 baseball slate by earning a road doubleheader split at Shelton State Community College Sunday afternoon.  Following a 12-3 victory that featured two big innings by the visitors, EMCC fell just short in a 4-3 nightcap setback.

In their first game action in more than a week due to a midweek postponement because of weather, the Lions manufactured solo tallies during each of the first two innings against SSCC.  A two-out, RBI single by Emil Ellis in the first was followed a frame later by Drew Standland scoring after a double steal and subsequent throwing error by the opposing catcher.

After the home-standing Buccaneers took a brief 3-2 lead with three runs in the bottom half of the second off winning pitcher J'Daylin Jackson, the visitors tied the contest at 3-3 in the fourth by taking advantage of a pair of hit batsmen and a wild pitch prior to Ellis' second two-out, RBI single of the game.     

The Lions broke open the scheduled nine-inning opener with five runs in the fifth frame and four more scores the following inning.  With EMCC sending 17 batters to the plate during those two combined innings, JoVaughn McNabb produced a key two-run single in the fifth and David Pimentel added a clutch two-out, two-run double an inning later to contribute to the run-ruled victory.

Four Lion batters had multiple hits to highlight EMCC's 12-hit attack in the opener.  Former New Hope High School standout Taylor Stafford went 3-for-5 at the plate, while Ellis, McNabb and Dylan Vuncannon all added two hits apiece.  Ellis, a product of Ridgeland High School, and McNabb, from Hattiesburg, each provided three RBIs for the winners.

Jackson, a sophomore southpaw from Greenville's St. Joseph Catholic School, improved to 3-0 on the year and 11-1 for his EMCC career by working the first five innings before giving way to fellow left-hander Zach Irwin.  A first-team all-state selection as a freshman for the Lions, Jackson struck out eight SSCC batters while issuing three walks and giving up three runs on five hits.    

In the nightcap, the Lions played catch-up the entire contest after Shelton State reached EMCC starting pitcher JC Redden, now 2-2 on the season, for two runs in the bottom of the first.  After McNabb was balked home in the third to cut the deficit in half, the Bucs went ahead 4-1 in the bottom half of the inning on a two-out, two-run double by Collin Jolly off Redden.

While Lion relievers Jake Bracewell, Jay Booth and Ryan Rigby all kept Shelton State hitless and off the scoreboard over the final three innings, the visitors were able to pull to within a run by pushing across solo tallies in the fifth and seventh innings on RBI groundouts by McNabb and Kyle Liberto, respectively.  But, that's as close as EMCC would get with three SSCC pitchers limiting the Lions to just three hits in the nightcap.

With the MACJC's newly implemented baseball season schedule format of having all 15 Mississippi junior colleges play each member school twice during a regular-season doubleheader, head coach Chris Rose's 6-6 EMCC Lions are slated to begin conference play Saturday (March 7) by traveling to Summit to take on the Bears of Southwest Mississippi Community College in a 2 p.m. doubleheader.