ELLISVILLE – In their road conference opener, the Lions of East Mississippi Community College fell to 13th-ranked Jones College, 8-6 and 7-1, during Saturday’s Mississippi Association of Community Colleges baseball action played at Community Bank Park.
The visiting Lions got on the scoreboard first in the opening game on Joe Scarborough’s team-leading ninth home run of the season leading off the second inning off Jones starting pitcher Eli Walker.
After the home-standing Bobcats tied the score at 1-1 with a solo tally in the fourth inning on Cole Manuel’s two-out RBI single, the two teams then traded four-run innings midway through the scheduled nine-inning contest. Jones’ four-run rally in the fifth inning was matched a frame later when the Lions used three singles and three walks to knot the score at 5-5.
Jones pulled ahead in the latter innings with a run in the seventh on Brady Thomas’ run-scoring triple off EMCC starting pitcher Cooper Garrison. The Bobcats added a pair of unearned insurance runs off reliever Sam Malone the next frame to extend the margin to 8-5.
Evan Radford and Coby Holmes paced the Lions’ 12-hit team effort with three hits apiece in the opening game. Jon Paul Yates and Zac Butler followed with two hits each.
In the nightcap, EMCC starter Drake Bayles pitched in tough luck by allowing three unearned runs with two outs in the first inning and then giving up another two-out tally in the third on Thomas’ RBI double.
The 4-0 lead was all the run support that Jones starting pitcher Trent Hillen would need, as the Nicholls State bounceback allowed only two hits and struck out 10 during his complete-game victory. Aside from a leadoff single to Radford in the fourth inning, EMCC’s only other hit off Hillen was Yates’ fifth-inning double that plated Holmes, who had drawn a one-out walk.
While Hillen retired the last eight batters he faced following the Yates double, the Bobcats supplied a trio of insurance runs in the bottom of the fifth, highlighted by Wade Fulton’s two-run single.
Head coach Brett Kimbrel’s EMCC Lions (17-10, 3-3 MACCC) continue their stretch of three consecutive road conference doubleheaders by playing at Holmes on Tuesday (March 19) and at Meridian on Saturday (March 23). Both upcoming road twin-bills are slated for 2 p.m. starts.