FULTON, Miss. – No. 3 ICC scored six runs in the first inning and held off a late rally to defeat rival Northeast Mississippi Community College, 7-4, Friday night in Game 1 of the opening round of the Mississippi Association of Community and Junior Colleges (MACJC) playoffs on Friday.
The Indians (38-7) opened the scoring in the bottom of the first when Meg Sullivan (Springville, Ala.) singled to left in her first at-bat since being injured at Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College to score Cori Childs (New Site). Macey Cox (Troy, Tenn.) singled to score Sullivan before Hannah Williams (Philadelphia) singled to plate McKenzie Piper (Pell City, Ala.) to give the Indians a 3-0 lead. Madison Carnes (Ecru) blasted a bases-loaded down off the glove of the third baseman to push across three runs to push the lead out to 6-0 before the Tigers (26-20) could get out of the inning.
The Indians took a 7-0 lead when Cox reached on an error that allowed Samantha Conley (Mandeville, La.) score from first.
The Tigers' bat came to life to score four with two outs in the top of the fourth inning.
Caleigh Wallace ripped a double to the gap to push across Paige Dill to put the Tigers on the board. Wallace scored on a seeing-eye single to left by Shaquera Wilson before Breanna Tarpley squeezed a single past a diving shortstop to score Wilson and Tianna Castillo to make it a 7-4 contest heading into the bottom of the fourth inning.
The Indians picked up a pair of hits in the bottom half of the inning but the Tigers got out of the jam without any damage done. Northeast picked up a hit in the top of the fifth but Bailie Springfield (Mantee) struck out three to keep the Tigers off the board.
Springfield gave up four runs, three earned, on seven hits and three walks while striking out six in a complete game effort to improve to 19-3 on the season and tie the team record for most wins in a single season.
Northeast battled back to put the tying run at the plate in the top of the seventh after a Wallace and Castillo singled with one out in the inning. Springfield picked up her sixth strikeout of the game before getting a pop up to Rachel Sternisha (Olive Branch) at shortstop for the final out of the game.
The Indians pounded out nine hits with Conley and Williams each with a pair of hits while Carnes finished the game with three RBI.
Game two of the best-of-three series is set for 1:00 p.m. Saturday in Fulton. Game three, if necessary, is scheduled to follow the conclusion of the second game.
In other MACJC Best-of-Three series: No. 4 Jones County Junior College (42-3) took a 1-0 series lead with a 5-2 win over Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College (22-15). No. 11 East Central Community College (33-10) defeated Hinds Community College (25-19) 6-2 and Pearl River Community College (25-18) knocked off Copiah-Lincoln Community College (24-18) 11-5 in the first game of their series.
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