EMCC earns MACCC season-opening home baseball split with top-ranked East Central in dramatic fashion

SCOOBA – Trace Tingle's two-hitter and Josh King's bases-clearing single lifted East Mississippi Community College to a thrilling 4-1 comeback nightcap win over top-ranked East Central during Wednesday's MACCC season-opening baseball action. The visiting Warriors hung on for a 4-3 victory over the Lions in the day's first game of the conference doubleheader played at EMCC's Gerald Poole Field.

After falling short by a run during their comeback attempt in the nine-inning opener, the home-standing EMCC Lions trailed East Central 1-0 heading into the bottom of the fifth frame of the seven-inning nightcap. With the nightcap locked in a classic pitchers' duel between Tingle and ECCC's Chris Billingsley, the Lions filled the bases on a trio of walks issued by Billingsley. With two outs, the visitors went to Riley Passman out of the bullpen, and the left-hander quickly got an 0-2 count on Caidan Bullard. After EMCC's freshman first baseman fought back to earn a bases-loaded walk and tie the game, King followed by stroking a bases-clearing single to right center field on another full count to provide the eventual winning margin for the Lions.

EMCC's Tingle went back out to the mound and proceeded to close out his pitching gem by throwing two more scoreless innings to finish off his second complete game and earn his third win of the year. While throwing 124 total pitches in the contest, the freshman left-hander out of Pascagoula's Resurrection Catholic School struck out a season-high nine batters with five walks. The only hits Tingle allowed in the game were doubles by Davin Lowery and Barret Rodgers in the second and third innings, respectively.

East Central's lone run of the nightcap was unearned after Lowery was bunted over to third following his leadoff double in the second inning and later advanced home on Briceton Johnson's mishandled two-out grounder to third base.

The Lions' other two hits in the second game came on Ty Murphy's two-out single in the third inning and Hugh LeMasters' double following EMCC's two-out, four-run rally in the fifth.

In the opening game, the Warriors took an early 1-0 lead in the fourth inning off EMCC starting pitcher Chipper Moore on Pablo Roque's double-play grounder to second base that scored leadoff batter Nic Arender, who was hit by a pitch, stole second, and was bunted over to third.

The Lions answered to take a brief 2-1 lead in the home half of the fourth by ending a 16-inning team scoreless drought with solo home runs from King and LeMasters off ECCC starter Bryson Goff. The homers marked King's first as an EMCC player after having transferred from Jones College, while LeMasters' blast was his team-leading third home run of the year and fifth of his EMCC career.

After knotting the score at 2-2 in the fifth, East Central reclaimed the lead for good by scoring a pair of runs two innings later when Eli Smith and Ryan Nelson smacked back-to-back doubles off Walker Seymour. Smith scored on Nelson's two-base hit and Nelson was balked in by subsequent EMCC reliever Otis Brooks III after stealing third.

EMCC did manage to cut the two-run deficit in half by scoring an eighth-inning run following leadoff singles by Murphy and Bullard. King's double-play grounder to second base plated Murphy before East Central closer Marbin Lezcano came in to secure the one-run win for the visitors by getting the final four outs.

The Lions' seven hits in the opening game were evenly divided between seven different players.

Head coach Brett Kimbrel's EMCC Lions (14-8, 1-1 MACCC) will continue conference play Sunday (March 16) when they travel to Perkinston to take on the Bulldogs of Mississippi Gulf Coast in a rescheduled doubleheader pushed back one day due to Saturday's potential severe weather across the state of Mississippi.