By By Austin Bishop/EMG Regional Sports Director
May 11, 2002
The Bulldogs of Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College were able to get into the East Mississippi Community College bullpen early in the game, scoring three runs in each of the fourth, fifth and sixth innings on the way to a 12-4 win in an elimination round game of the NJCAA Region 23 Division I Baseball Tournament on Friday afternoon.
The win pushes Gulf Coast into an elimination game at MCC's Scaggs Field at 1 p.m. against the loser of Friday night's Jones-Mississippi Delta game.
East Mississippi, which finishes the season at 17-31, took a 1-0 lead in the top of the third inning when Kent Lewis reached on an error and later scored on another Gulf Coast error.
Gulf Coast tied the game in the bottom of the first, then scored three runs in the fourth to go up 4-1.
The Bulldogs used two EMCC errors and a double by Matt Anderson to highlight the big inning.
EMCC whittled it down to 4-3 with two runs in the top of the fifth. The Lions picked up their runs after the first two batters were retired. Wade Whitaker walked and later scored and Josh Snider singled and scored with Drew Powell coming up with a big RBI single.
Gulf Coast came back to pick up three more runs in the bottom of the fifth thanks to a three-run homer by Chas Evans.
Gulf Coast stretched it to 10-3 in the bottom of the sixth with three more runs. Ron McMillan had a big two-run double in the inning for the Bulldogs, while Scotty Scott had an RBI single.
The Lions cut it to 10-4 in the top of the seventh when Snider doubled in Whitaker.
The Bulldogs added single runs in the bottom of the seventh and the eighth to win the game by the eight-run rule.
Jonathan Butterfield pitched a strong complete game for Gulf Coast, striking out 10 and allowing just five hits. Donte Hill took the loss for EMCC.
Snider had three hits to lead East Mississippi, while Scott, Evans, Bernard Williams and Nick Stillwagon had two hits each for Gulf Coast, now 22-23 on the season.