EMCC Lions earn doubleheader baseball split at Copiah-Lincoln with 9-6 nightcap triumph

WESSON – A three-run sixth inning lifted the East Mississippi Community College baseball team to a 9-6 nightcap victory in earning a doubleheader split with Copiah-Lincoln Community College during Friday afternoon MACJC action played at Sullivan Field.  In the opener, Co-Lin scored three runs in the eighth and held on for an 8-6 win over the Lions.

Following their opening-game loss, the Lions grabbed an early 1-0 lead in the first inning of the nightcap.  After opening the game with a triple, Marcus Ragan came home to score on Taylor Stafford's subsequent groundout.

Both teams produced big second innings.  Stafford's team-leading fourth home run of the year – a two-run blast off Co-Lin starting pitcher Miles Thomas – highlighted the Lions' four-run second frame.  The home-standing Wolfpack responded with five unearned runs in the home half of the second off EMCC starting pitcher Chance Witt to knot the score at 5-5.

East Mississippi's solo run in the third was answered by another unearned run scored by Co-Lin in the fifth off eventual winning pitcher Chance Riley to keep the score deadlocked at 6-6.

With the help of two costly infield errors by the Wolfpack, the visitors batted through the lineup to score three sixth-inning runs for the winning margin.  Whitt Davis' two-run single highlighted the game-deciding frame for the Lions.

Meanwhile on the mound, sophomore closer Jay Booth preserved Riley's first collegiate win by working the final two innings for the Lions.  Booth, from Florence, retired the side in order in the sixth and got out of some initial seventh-inning trouble to nail down his first save of the season.

Ragan, a freshman outfielder out of Warren Central High School, paced the Lions with three hits in the victory, including a double and single to go along with his game-opening three-bagger.  Sophomore Emil Ellis, from Ridgeland, added two more singles in the nightcap to give him five hits for the afternoon.

The opener was all Co-Lin for the first half of the contest, as the Wolfpack scored three first-inning runs and added two more scores in the third off EMCC starting pitcher JC Redden to jump ahead 5-0.

The Lions rallied during the middle innings with three runs in the fifth, highlighted by Ellis' two-run single, and another tally in the sixth to cut the deficit to 5-4.  The visitors then grabbed their first lead of the game in the eighth on Andrew White's first collegiate homer – a two-run shot – off Co-Lin starting pitcher Cole Langdon.

EMCC didn't hold the lead for long, as the Wolfpack scored three runs off Lion relievers Ben Smith and Colton McKeithen in the home half of the eighth.  Matthew Mordecai's lead-off double was followed later in the inning by Jordan Antley's two-run single with the bases loaded.

To their credit, the Lions came right back in the final frame to make things very interesting.  They managed to load the bases on a hit, error and a walk, before White was fanned by Co-Lin reliever Austin Douglas on a full count to end the ballgame.

With three singles, Ellis led EMCC's 11-hit team effort in the opener.  White, from Northeast Lauderdale High School, had a fifth-inning single to go along with his go-ahead, two-run homer in the eighth.

Coach Chris Rose's East Mississippi Lions, now 7-17 overall and 3-5 in conference action, travel to Clarksdale to take on the Tigers of Coahoma Community College in a noon doubleheader on Wednesday.