EMCC Lions looking to bounce back during continued baseball home stand

SCOOBA – The Lions of East Mississippi Community College will look to get back into the win column this week during the continuation of their current baseball home stand. The Lions will play host to Holmes and Meridian on Tuesday and Saturday, respectively, after dropping home doubleheaders last week to Mississippi Delta and Jones.

This past Saturday, EMCC fell to 13^th-ranked Jones, 6-2, in the nine-inning opener and then dropped its third one-run decision of the week with a 7-6 setback in the seven-inning nightcap.

In their opener against Jones, the Lions were limited to four hits by a trio of Bobcat pitchers. Starting pitcher Colby Tubre scattered three hits over seven innings and was staked to a 2-1 lead. With Brandon King getting the start on the mound for the Lions, EMCC's lone run during Tubre's starting stint came on Evan Radford's leadoff homer in the fourth.

Though leaving 16 runners on base during the contest, the Bobcats extended their lead to 6-1 with a pair of runs during each of the final two frames. The Lions did manage to push across a second run in the bottom of the ninth inning before stranding runners at the corners.

In Saturday's nightcap, EMCC gave starting pitcher Drake Bayles an early 3-0 lead over Jones with first-inning, run-scoring hits by Radford and Zack Griffith. Radford then followed two innings later with his team-leading seventh home run of the season and second solo shot of the day. 

After Jacob Wax's leadoff homer in the fifth off Bayles ignited a four-run inning that gave the Bobcats a 4-3 lead, the Lions answered with an unearned run in the sixth to knot the score and set up an eventful final frame.

For the second time in three days after getting off to an electric start this season coming out of EMCC's bullpen, Ben Riley Flowers struggled somewhat with his control by allowing four straight two-out walks in front of Tristan Pearson's clutch two-run single that gave Jones a 7-4 lead. The Lions rallied again in their final at-bat with two runs in the bottom of the seventh before coming up one run short for the third time in four games on the week.

Radford, a Southern Miss transfer, was the Lions' offensive leader in the Jones twin bill by going a combined 3-for-7 at the plate with the pair of solo home runs, four RBIs and three runs scored.

Earlier in the week, East Mississippi's conference home stand began two days earlier than scheduled when the team's Wednesday doubleheader against Mississippi Delta was pushed back a day and moved to Scooba due to unplayable field conditions in Moorhead.

During last Thursday's rescheduled home twin bill versus the Trojans, EMCC rebounded from a 4-0 first-inning deficit to take a 7-4 lead with four runs in the third and two more in the fourth as the designated visiting team due to the venue change.

The middle portion of the nine-inning opener was controlled by Delta with multiple runs scored in the fourth, fifth and seventh frames. The Trojans took a 12-8 advantage into the final frame when the Lions began their first of two unsuccessful final-inning comeback attempts on the day. Started by Gray Berry's leadoff home run, EMCC proceeded to score two more times before falling one run short by leaving two runners in scoring position.

With 13 hits in the opener against Delta, the Lions had five players with multiple hits in the contest. Berry was 3-for-4 with his first homer of the year and three RBIs, while Ethan Medlin, Will Crawford, Ayden Alsobrooks and Joe Scarborough all followed with two hits apiece for EMCC.

The seven-inning nightcap between EMCC and Delta featured a pitching duel between Walker Swearingen and Tate Anderson, respectively. Medlin's leadoff single in the first and Berry's one-out double in the fifth marked the only hits by either team through the game's first five innings.

After the Trojans manufactured the first run of the contest in the bottom of the fourth inning on Chett McDaniel's sacrifice fly that plated Tyrell Burnett, the two teams traded two-run efforts in the sixth inning. Both of Delta's runs scored via wild pitches from Flowers after he took over for Swearingen at the start of the inning. As the game's designated visiting team, the Lions' last-inning comeback attempt was denied when they again left runners in scoring position after Anderson finished off his complete-game victory by getting a pair of fly outs.

Almost lost in Anderson's complete-game win was Swearingen's five-inning no decision in which the Clarkdale High School product did not allow a hit with five strikeouts and three walks.

Head coach Brett Kimbrel's EMCC Lions (12-13, 1-5 MACCC) will continue their current baseball home stand with upcoming doubleheaders against Holmes on Tuesday (2 p.m.) and sixth-ranked Meridian on Saturday (1 p.m.). Both conference twin bills are slated to be played at EMCC's Gerald Poole Field on the Scooba campus.