EMCC Lions earn conference-opening baseball doubleheader split at Holmes with pair of 10-8 decisions

GOODMAN – The visiting Lions of East Mississippi Community College flipped the score during Tuesday's MACCC baseball opener at Holmes by claiming a 10-8 nightcap win to earn a doubleheader split with the Bulldogs. Holmes prevailed over EMCC by the same score in the day's opening game played at Charlie Donald Field.

After surrendering a late-game lead during the nine-inning opener, the Lions led throughout the seven-inning nightcap, beginning with a five-run opening frame in which their first five batters all reached base. Caidan Bullard was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded to begin the scoring. A two-run double by Jamie Muse Jr. was followed by Hunter Russell's sacrifice fly and an RBI single from Matthan Weaver.

Holmes reached EMCC starting pitcher Trace Tingle for a pair of run-scoring doubles in the third inning, but the Lions countered with a run in the fourth and two more scores a frame later to extend their lead to 8-2 heading into the fifth inning.

The Bulldogs promptly answered by chasing Tingle with a five-run fifth inning that cut EMCC's lead to 8-7 following home runs by Jaxon Cripps and Ethan Walker.

The Lions added a pair of timely insurance runs in the top of the seventh to move ahead 10-7 before having to thwart another Holmes comeback bid in the home half of the final frame. Following consecutive one-out singles by the Bulldogs that plated a run and put the potential tying runs on base, third-year sophomore pitcher Jacob Nunn relieved Garrett Pound on the mound and struck out the two Holmes batters he faced to preserve the win and notch his second career save.

As he did in the first game of the afternoon, Bullard went 2-for-4 at the plate with three RBIs in the win. Weaver also had two hits for EMCC in the nightcap.

Tingle, a sophomore left-hander out of Pascagoula's Resurrection Catholic High School, picked up his first win of the year and fifth of his EMCC career by pitching into the fifth inning for the Lions. He had four strikeouts and allowed only one walk while scattering seven hits.

In the opening game at Holmes, the Lions held the lead through their first four at-bats. Bullard helped stake EMCC starting pitcher Stephen Eakes with an early 3-0 lead with a two-run homer – his fifth of the year – in the first inning followed by an RBI single two frames later.

After the Bulldogs chased Eakes from the game with two runs in the third inning to cut their deficit to 3-2, the Lions increased their lead to 6-2 with a three-run fourth frame. Russell's first collegiate home run – a two-run shot – was followed later in the inning by a run-scoring groundout that scored Jack Willis, who had tripled.

The Bulldogs responded in the home half of the fourth with a five-run inning that gave them their first lead (7-6) of the contest. Holmes' two-out rally was capped by Chase Peeples' grand slam home run off EMCC reliever Ty Harden.

Following three scoreless frames by both teams, the Lions manufactured a pair of runs in the eighth inning to reclaim a short-lived 8-7 lead. In the home half of the inning, Holmes took advantage of a costly infield error by EMCC to tie the game before plating a pair of go-ahead unearned runs on Cripps' two-out, two-run double.

Bullard was 2-for-4 with three RBIs in the day's first contest for the Lions. Willis and Miles Mitchell added two hits apiece in EMCC's opening-game setback.

Head coach Brett Kimbrel's EMCC Lions (7-18, 1-1 MACCC) will begin their home conference slate with Saturday's (March 14) doubleheader against the Bears of Southwest Mississippi. First pitch is set for 2 p.m. at EMCC's Gerald Poole Field on the Scooba campus.