EMCC Lady Lions break into win column with 11-0, 15-6 home DH sweep over Coahoma

SCOOBA – The East Mississippi Community College softball team broke into the win column with a run-rule home doubleheader sweep over Coahoma Community College during Tuesday's MACJC action played at the EMCC Softball Field.  Following an 11-0 shutout victory in the opening game, the Lady Lions completed the conference sweep with a 15-6 nightcap triumph over the Lady Tigers.

In the first contest, EMCC pounded out a dozen hits as a team, while freshman pitcher Britney Bonney limited Coahoma to just a pair of fourth-inning singles en route to posting the five-inning shutout.  During the nightcap, the Lady Lions overcame an early 5-0 deficit by posting back-to-back, six-run innings to again prevail in run-rule fashion.

After staking Bonney to a 3-0 lead in the opening frame of the first game, EMCC batted through the lineup in the second inning to score four runs on five hits.  A two-out, two-run double by Mackenzie Dolan started a streak of four straight hits by the Lady Lions in the inning.

With Bonney cruising along in the circle, EMCC then reached the eight-run mercy rule margin by again scoring four times with three extra-base hits in the fourth inning.  Following Madelyn Wilkes' two-out triple and consecutive run-scoring doubles by Blake Bond and Megan Cummins, Bonney's two-run single capped the second straight four-run frame.

In the opener, Wilkes and Cummins led the way at the plate with three hits apiece for the winners.  Bond added two hits and a sacrifice fly.

Bonney, a former all-state pitcher at Madison Central High School, picked up her first collegiate victory by striking out five and walking just one during her two-hit shutout.

Coahoma promptly responded in the nightcap by scoring four runs in the first inning off EMCC starting pitcher Kelsey English.  CCC starting pitcher Mekayla Hubbard helped her own cause by blasting a three-run homer to highlight the initial frame for the Lady Tigers.

After the visitors added a solo tally the next inning to move ahead 5-0, the Lady Lions batted around during the second and third innings while putting together consecutive six-run frames.  The third inning was highlighted by back-to-back triples from Cummins and Hope Thames followed by Lilly Burton's RBI double.

Coahoma cut the deficit to 12-6 with a run in the top of the fourth, but EMCC quickly answered by pushing across three more runs to reach the run-rule margin in the home half of the frame.

Bonney, English, Thames and Burton all paced the Lady Lions' 11-hit team effort with two hits apiece in the nightcap.  English, a sophomore out of Birmingham, Ala., also picked up the abbreviated complete-game victory in the circle for EMCC.

Coach Austin McNair's EMCC Lady Lions, now 2-11 overall and 2-6 in MACJC action, continue conference play by taking on the ninth-ranked Lady Bulldogs of Mississippi Gulf Coast in a 2 p.m. Friday afternoon doubleheader in Perkinston.