EMCC Lions set for MACCC baseball opener at Hinds after Tuesday split in Senatobia

SENATOBIA – In their final non-conference baseball action before the start of MACCC play this weekend, the Lions of East Mississippi Community College earned a split during Tuesday's three-way doubleheader played between EMCC, Copiah-Lincoln and home-standing Northwest Mississippi.

The Lions came back to secure a 6-4 nightcap victory over Co-Lin after dropping a 7-0 decision to the Northwest Rangers behind the two-hit, complete-game pitching of Brooks Rice.

After being shut out and striking out 15 times in the opener played at Jim Miles Field, EMCC got on the board in the opening frame versus Co-Lin on Carson Gault's two-out, run-scoring single. The Wolves answered in the bottom half of the inning by pushing across the tying run off EMCC starting pitcher Walker Swearingen.

Following two scoreless innings, both two teams scored again in the fourth inning. The Lions took another brief lead in the top half of the frame when Gault's leadoff double was followed by Will Crawford's sacrifice fly to right field. Co-Lin again responded in the home half of the inning by manufacturing a game-tying second run before Harrison Mohead followed with a solo homer to give the Wolves a 3-2 lead.

The game-changing fifth inning started quietly for the Lions with a strikeout and a fly out before a booted ground ball to second base opened the door for a decisive four-run inning. Following the infield error, Evan Radford's RBI double tied the game at 3-3. Amongst a walk and a hit batsman later in the frame, EMCC produced three more two-out runs on Crawford's run-scoring double and Caden Tate's timely two-run single in his first game action of the season.  

The Lions then turned to their bullpen to close out the contest. After Cooper Garrison retired all five batters he faced to set up his eventual second win of the year, EMCC sophomore left-hander Ben Riley Flowers took to the mound in the sixth. The Central Alabama Community College transfer worked out of some seventh-inning difficulties to register his third save of the year and record four more strikeouts in two innings of work. Flowers, out of Saraland, Ala., has now recorded 30 strikeouts in just 13.1 total innings pitched on the season.

At the plate in the nightcap, Radford and Gault paced the Lions' eight-hit team effort with two hits apiece.

In the opening game against the Rangers, the Lions could only manage five baserunners against Northwest's Rice. The sophomore right-hander out of Madison Central High School and a former LSU signee had allowed only a third-inning walk to EMCC catcher Tanner Parker until Jon Paul Yates and Coby Holmes managed consecutive singles in the sixth frame. Rice worked out of a one-out, bases-loaded jam in the inning by getting a strikeout and a ground out before returning to the hill in the seventh to collect two more strikeouts en route to completing his two-hit, 15-strikeout masterpiece.

Head coach Brett Kimbrel's 11-8 EMCC Lions are scheduled to begin MACCC baseball competition with a Saturday (March 11) road doubleheader against the preseason 15^th-ranked Hinds Community College Eagles. First pitch for Saturday's EMCC-Hinds MACCC season opener is set for 2 p.m. at Joe G. Moss Field in Raymond.