The next stop for the East Central Community College baseball team is the region playoffs, as the Warriors split a doubleheader with the Northwest Saturday at Clark-Gay Baseball Complex in Decatur.
East Central won the opener 10-7, while Northwest grabbed the nightcap 12-6 in the final regular season games for both schools.
East Central will face Itawamba Community College in a best-of-three series.
With the home split with Northwest, East Central is 30-16 overall on the season and 17-11 in MACJC league play. The Northwest Rangers are 30-12 overall and 20-8 in the league.
In the opener against the Rangers, East Central jumped out to a big lead and then had to hold on for a 10-7 win.
The Warriors led 6-0 after the first three innings before Northwest chipped away at the lead with two in the third and three more in the sixth. East Central put the game away with four more runs in the bottom of the sixth.
Alex Hay drove in three of the Warriors’ 10 runs with a double and a pair of singles. Freshmen Jay Johnston of Lake and Deon Leflore each had two RBI. Leflore’s came on a long home run over the right field wall, while Johnston tripled in two runs. Jacob Edwards of Newton County and Davis Lott also had two hits each in the game.
Kolby Crowley got the start and the win for East Central, giving up just two hits and two runs over five innings of work.
Game two was just the opposite, as the Warriors had to play comeback from almost the first pitch.
Northwest plated six runs on five hits and an error in the top of the first for a quick lead.
East Central scored two runs in the bottom of the first, third and fifth innings, but couldn’t keep pace with the Rangers.
George Farid and Ken Scott each had two-run homers for the Warriors. It was Scott’s team-leading seventh of the season. Ryan Cupit was four-for-four at the plate in the second game.
ECCC falls twice to Gulf Coast
The East Central Community College Warriors could not get the bats going against Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College Wednesday, May 2, as the Bulldogs swept an MACJC doubleheader at Ken “Curly” Farris Field in Perkinston.
East Central managed just two hits in a 9-1 eight-inning loss to Gulf Coast in the opener and five hits in the 5-2 nightcap loss.
In the opener at Gulf Coast, the Warriors managed just two hits and five base runners off Bulldog left-hander Josh Lewis, who went the distance. East Central’s lone score came off a double from Hunter Harper of Enterprise in the top of the second. A couple of two-run homers by Gulf Coast in the bottom of the first put the Warriors in an early hole.
In game two, East Central took a 1-0 lead with a solo home run in the second inning off the bat of freshman Ken Scott of Clarkdale, his sixth of the season. But Gulf Coast had another four-run inning in the third, including a three-run home run, to move in front to stay 4-1. The Warriors’ other run came off a double from freshman Will Ross of Hernando in the fifth.
