Eagles close regular season with split

By Robby Atkinson/special to The Star

The Meridian Community College Eagles closed the 2007 regular season in both a positive and negative way on Tuesday at Scaggs Field.

The Eagles allowed four late runs in game one of its doubleheader with conference rival East Mississippi to drop a 6-2 decision.

MCC rebounded in game two to take a 6-1 win and end the 2007 regular season with an overall record of 37-11.

Meridian will now advance to play in the 2007 MACJC State Tournament which will be held on the campus of Mississippi Gulf Coast. The tournament will be held May 3-6 and the final bracket will be complete for the tournament after the final conference games are completed this weekend. East Mississippi (19-29, 3-11) will finish out the regular season with a doubleheader at home against Hinds on Saturday. First pitch for the doubleheader is set for 2 p.m. at Scooba.

East Mississippi 6
Meridian 2

East Mississippi struck for four runs in the final two innings to take a four-run upset over Meridian in game one.

A.J. Freeman led the four-run rally for the Lions with a two-run single in the seventh and Jay Stoddard pitched a complete game for the Lions to push his record to 4-2.

"We are out of the playoffs and all we are playing for his pride," said East Mississippi head coach Tony Montgomery. "We beat a very good team. I was very happy with the effort in game one and it was nice to get such a huge win on the road."

The Lions cracked the scoreboard in the top of the first inning to take a 1-0 lead.

A.J. Freeman led the game off with a single and later scored on an RBI fielder's choice by Ben Fleming to give EMCC the one-run lead. Meridian answered the run with a solo home run by Drew Snider in the bottom of the second to tie the game at 1-1.

East Mississippi took the lead back from the Eagles in the third inning thanks to an RBI single by Billy Beard to make the score 2-1.

Meridian bounced right back in the fourth inning to tie the game at 2-2. Scott Mosley smashed a single thorugh the middle to tie the game after David Woods had reached on a single. The Lions would score one run in the sixth and three insurance runs in the seventh inning to take the game one win. D.D. Young had an RBI double in the sixth inning for EMCC and Freeman added the two-run single in the seventh for the Lions.

MCC 6
EMCC 1

The Eagles were able to strike back and take a five-run win in game two to earn the split over East Mississipi. Wade Weathers was the star of game two for Meridian by pitching six strong innings and collecting 13 strikeouts.

"He (Weathers) pitched a great game for us in the second game," said MCC head coach Chris Rose. "We were able to bounce back in the second game and earn the split, but the real season now begins with the postseason around the corner. We hit the ball a lot better in the second game and we have some things to work on before next weekend."

Meridian scored its first run of the game in ths first inning on an RBI single by Michael Guerrero to give the Eagles a 1-0 lead. MCC continued to pour on the runs in the second inning to take a 3-0 lead over the Lions. Snider earned an RBI on a groundout which scored Toddrick Stevenson who reached base on a double earlier in the inning.

Matt Holliman also added an RBI double in the two-run inning for the Eagles.

The lone run of game two for EMCC came off the bat of Fleming who connected on a solo home run in the fourth inning to cut the score to 3-1. MCC added a run in the fourth and two runs in the fifth inning to take the win over East Mississippi. Holliman drove one run in for Meridian on a sacrifice fly and Tyler Moore added a solo homer for MCC.