EMCC Lions set for third straight baseball postseason appearance

SCOOBA – Set to make their third straight baseball postseason appearance, the Lions of East Mississippi Community College will take on 13^th-ranked Jones College this weekend (May 3-5) in an NJCAA Region 23 best-of-three playoff series to be played in Ellisville. Nine-inning contests are set for Friday (6 p.m.), Saturday (4 p.m.) and Sunday (2 p.m.), if necessary, at Community Bank Park.

Bidding for the program's first 30-win season in 10 years, head coach Brett Kimbrel's 29-20 EMCC Lions tied for sixth place (with Copiah-Lincoln) in this year's MACCC final regular-season standings with a 15-13 conference mark and earned the No. 7 playoff seed. The Jones Bobcats (37-13, 19-9 MACCC) placed fourth to earn one of the four series-hosting sites for this weekend's NJCAA Region 23 postseason baseball playoffs.

As MACCC regular-season champions, nationally second-ranked Pearl River (46-8, 25-3 MACCC) received an opening-round playoff bye as well as the honor of hosting the upcoming NJCAA Region 23 Baseball Tournament (May 13-17) in Poplarville.

The MACCC's other best-of-three baseball playoff series scheduled to be played this weekend are No. 2 seed and nationally top-ranked East Central (48-4, 24-4 MACCC) hosting No. 9 seed Northeast Mississippi (26-25, 12-16 MACCC), No. 3 seed and 12^th-ranked Northwest Mississippi (37-15, 21-7 MACCC) welcoming No. 8 seed Hinds (26-27, 14-14 MACCC), and No. 5 seed Meridian (33-17, 18-10 MACCC) entertaining No. 6 seed Copiah-Lincoln (27-25, 15-13 MACCC).

During regular-season play, EMCC claimed a 4-1 home win over Jones during a non-conference, round-robin event played in Scooba on March 6. The teams then faced each other again 10 days later (March 16) in Ellisville with the Bobcats sweeping the visiting Lions, 8-6 and 7-1, during conference action.

Most recently, the Lions closed out their regular-season slate by dropping 7-3 and 7-2 home decisions to MACCC runner-up East Central this past Saturday at Gerald Poole Field. Prior to Saturday's regular-season finale against the Warriors, 16 EMCC baseball sophomores were recognized during pregame Sophomore Day activities on the Scooba campus.

In the opening EMCC-ECCC contest, the Lions staked EMCC starting pitcher Cooper Garrison to a 3-1 lead through seven innings on Aiden Fancher's two-run homer in the fourth inning and a two-out RBI single by Ayden Alsobrooks in the seventh. Following Garrison's masterful 122-pitch performance with a dozen strikeouts, the Warriors knotted the score at 3-3 on Liam Gilbert's two-run double in the eighth inning.

Following a scoreless ninth inning, East Central opened the extra frame with a walk and a hit batsman followed by three consecutive singles on the way to scoring four runs and securing the 7-3 victory.

The scheduled seven-inning nightcap was tied early after both teams scored twice in the third frame. East Central's two runs off EMCC starting pitcher Drake Bayles were answered by Evan Radford's two-out, two-run double in the home half of the inning.

In support of Luke Cooley's winning pitching effort, the Warriors went ahead 5-2 in the fourth inning and then added solo tallies in the fifth and sixth frames to account for the final margin. In contrast, the Lions were held scoreless and managed just three singles off Cooley and four ECCC relievers over the last four innings.

In previous postseason baseball appearances under Kimbrel's guidance, EMCC's 2022 squad (28-19, 20-8/3^rd in MACCC) knocked off visiting East Central (9-8 W, 11-10 L & 11-1 W) during a best-of-three series played in Scooba before going 1-2 as the No. 2 seed in the NJCAA Region 23 Tournament played in Poplarville. EMCC opened the Pearl River-hosted region tournament two years ago with an 8-4 victory over Jones College prior to falling to LSU Eunice (10-0) and Hinds (10-4). Last season during baseball playoff action, the Lions (24-26, 12-16/No. 9 seed) were swept in a best-of-three series (15-1 & 9-1) at nationally fifth-ranked Meridian.