EMCC Lions fall 9-6 to No. 21 Itawamba in regional elimination game to close out 2026 season
East Mississippi Community College’s 2026 baseball season came to a close with a 9-6 setback to 21st-ranked Itawamba in Thursday’s elimination game of the NJCAA Region 23 Baseball Tournament played at the Clark/Gay Baseball Complex.
DECATUR – East Mississippi Community College's 2026 baseball season came to a close with a 9-6 setback to 21st-ranked Itawamba in Thursday's elimination game of the NJCAA Region 23 Baseball Tournament played at the Clark/Gay Baseball Complex.
Earlier in the week during the double-elimination tournament played in Decatur, the seventh-seeded EMCC Lions earned their fourth postseason baseball appearance in the last five years by claiming a 9-5 win over 10th-seeded Northeast Mississippi during Monday's play-in game. Tuesday's 8-3 loss to nationally second-ranked and host East Central in Game 1 of the week-long tournament moved EMCC into the losers' bracket. Weather concerns forced postponement of Wednesday's scheduled games and pushed back tournament play one day.
Thursday's elimination contest initially featured a pitchers' duel between EMCC's Jax Joyner and ICC's Solomon Smith through the first four scoreless innings until the Indians batted around to score six runs in the top of the fifth inning. Through the first four frames, Joyner had allowed only four ICC baserunners on two singles and a pair of walks. Offensively to open the game, the Lions put two runners on base with just one out during each of the first two frames but could not bring anyone around to score.
An infield error by the Lions to open the fifth inning preceded consecutive singles by Daniel Whitfield and Brody Thompson to load the bases for ICC. Reid Kent greeted EMCC reliever Jonas Coleman with a grand slam to right field to begin the scoring. The Indians followed later in the inning by plating two more unearned runs on Jack Cummings' two-out, two-RBI double to take a 6-0 lead.
After Itawamba scored two more runs in the seventh inning on Tre Gunn's two-run single to move ahead 8-0, the Lions answered in the home half of the frame by cutting their deficit in half with a four-run seventh. Back-to-back RBI doubles from Colin Boyd and Caidan Bullard were sandwiched between singles by Miles Mitchell and Jack Willis to make it an 8-4 contest.
A frame later, Cooper Bates' pinch-hit, two-run blast off ICC reliever Houston Green – his first collegiate home run – again trimmed the deficit in half (8-6) heading into the ninth inning.
The Indians pushed across an additional two-out unearned run in the final frame to close out the game's scoring, as the Lions could only manage a two-out single by Braxton Whiteside in the home half of the ninth inning.
As a team, the Lions totaled a dozen hits in their season finale, led by Whiteside, Mitchell, Boyd and Willis all with two hits apiece. Whiteside, a freshman outfielder from Pontotoc, led EMCC with six hits (6-for-12) during this week's regional tournament, including a 3-for-4 effort at the plate during the Lions' play-in win over Northeast Mississippi.
On the mound, four EMCC pitchers combined for 11 strikeouts during the contest.
Head coach Brett Kimbrel's 21-33 EMCC Lions finished conference play in seventh place within the MACCC regular-season standings with a breakeven 14-14 league record, including conference doubleheader sweeps over Meridian, Hinds, Southwest Mississippi and Mississippi Delta.
Statistically on the year, the Lions featured six players who hit .300 or better for the season, led by Jonas Coleman (.351), Jack Willis (.344) and Sam McClinton Jr. (.341). Infielders Logan Flaskamp (.330), Caidan Bullard (.325) and Miles Mitchell (.302) also batted .300 or better for the year. Bullard and Mitchell tied the team lead with 11 home runs apiece while also ranking first and second in runs batted in with 50 and 47, respectively, for the Lions. The pitching trio of Evan Hilliard (6-2), Jax Joyner (4-5) and Trace Tingle (3-5) combined for 13 of EMCC's 21 total wins this past season.
