No. 16 EMCC set to open MACJC State Baseball Tournament against Northwest Mississippi Thursday at Hinds
Fresh off this past weekend's best-of-three playoff series sweep over Mississippi Delta, the 16th-ranked Lions of East Mississippi Community College will meet Northwest Mississippi during Thursday's opening game of the 2015 MACJC State Baseball Tournament being hosted by Hinds Community College. Game time is set for 2 p.m. at Joe G. Moss Field on Hinds' Raymond campus.
SCOOBA – Fresh off this past weekend's best-of-three playoff series sweep over Mississippi Delta, the 16th-ranked Lions of East Mississippi Community College will meet Northwest Mississippi during Thursday's opening game of the 2015 MACJC State Baseball Tournament being hosted by Hinds Community College. Game time is set for 2 p.m. at Joe G. Moss Field on Hinds' Raymond campus.
Following the tournament opener between MACJC regular-season runner-up EMCC (28-14) and Northwest (30-13), Thursday's other first-round contest will feature the host Hinds Eagles (38-5) against the 15th-ranked Eagles of Meridian Community College (33-15) at 6 p.m. Hinds, which swept Southwest Mississippi in its best-of-three playoff series over the weekend, claimed the MACJC regular-season baseball championship with a 23-5 league mark and entered the week ranked third nationally in the most recent NJCAA Division II poll. Meridian bested East Central in three games, while Northwest swept Jones County to qualify for this week's four-team state tournament.
This week's three-day, double-elimination tournament at Hinds will continue with an 11 a.m. Friday elimination game between the losers of Thursday's opening games. The first-day winners will meet Friday afternoon at 2:30 p.m. with another elimination contest to follow at 6 p.m. Game times Saturday are slated for 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. (if necessary).
Every game of this week's Hinds-hosted MACJC State Baseball Tournament is scheduled to be live-streamed via www.hindsccsports.net. Fans may also access Hinds' 2015 MACJC State Baseball Tournament Central page throughout the week at www.hindsccsports.com/sports/2015/5/4/BB_0504154028.aspx?path=baseball.
The top three teams coming out of this week's state tournament will join host and top-ranked LSU Eunice (41-9) at next week's (May 14-17) NJCAA Region 23 Baseball Tournament in Eunice, La.
Bidding for the school's first state baseball title since 1985, head coach Chris Rose's EMCC Lions are 28-14 overall on the year, including a 20-8 MACJC record as state regular-season runners-up. Hitting .334 collectively as a team, East Mississippi features seven regulars batting .321 or better. EMCC freshman slugger David Pimentel is currently tied for eighth among the NJCAA Division II statistical leaders with 14 home runs on the year, including eight homers over his last 11 games. The Nashville native is hitting .368 with 55 RBIs for the season.
On the mound, sophomores J'Daylin Jackson and Andrew Crane pace East Mississippi's pitching staff with respective season records of 7-1 and 6-1. Jackson, from Greenville's St. Joseph Catholic School, is 15-2 in his EMCC career, while Pascagoula's Crane is close behind at 12-2. Out of the bullpen, EMCC freshman closers Ryan Rigby (Kosciusko) and Jay Booth (Florence) have combined for nine saves on the campaign.