2007

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EC's Baseball Season Ends Patterson OfMorton Takes Mound For Warriors SPECIAl TO THE TIMES scored Hendrix and an RBI single by Adam Griffm, which scored Washington. EC's fmal runs came in the seventh inning, when Griffm's double brought home

hard throughout the season. In the beginning, we asked our guys to lay a foundation for this program and to walk on their own foundation. I believe this team truly did just that and I am so proud of what they accomplished. "They are a great bunch of guys to be associated with and we are going to miss our eight sophomores, as they have m~e a tremendous impact on our program." East Central jumped out to 1· 0 first-inning against Gulf Coast when Terrell Hendrix scored from third on a wild pitch. Hendrix had walked and advanced to second on a single by Jacob Casey, and later moved to third on a sacrifice by George Washington. Gulf Coast later took a 2-1 lead in the contest. EC tied the contest at 2-2 on Casey's solo home run in the third, but the Bulldogs explod– ed for six runs in their half of the inning on a grand slam. The Diamond Warriors scored a pair of runs in the flfth inning, thanks to an RBI triple by Washington which

DECATUR-After falling twice to East Central Community College in the MACJC State Baseball Tournament, nationally ranked Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College took advantage of a six-run third inning to post a 14-6 victory over the Diamond Warriors Tuesday afternoon, eliminat– ing the state champs from fur. ther competition in the Region 23 Tournament held at Meridian Community College. East Central was sent to the eliminationroundafterfalling 10-2 to Northwest Mississippi Community College in first– round tournament action on Monday, May 14. The Diamond Warriors com– pleted season action with a 31- 23 mark under first-year head coach Neal Holliman, who received MACJC Baseball Coach of the Year in recogni– tion of his team's success.

Washington from fir.st, and a single by Brian Jones scored Jones. Gulf Coast tallied three runs in the seventh and the game was called due to the eight-run rule. In the loss to Northwest, EC managed just six hits- a double and single by Hendrix, and sin– gles by Washington, Griffm, Jones and Chad Gosselin. Griffin scored on Jones' RBI single in the second inning and EC's other run came when Hendrix crossed the plate on a sacrifice by Colby Hawthorne of McNeil. Northwest scored one run in the first, three in the third and added six r uns in the sixth to put the game out of reach. Joe Patterson of Morton took the loss for EC, allowing four earned runs on five hits. He fanned four batters and walked two.

Holliman, who was a first· year assistant at ECCC when the Diamond Warriors won the 1998 title under the late Jamie Clark, gave most of the praise for this year's team to his assistants- Michael Avalon and Roberto Martinez - and a dedi– cated group of Diamond Warriors. "There is no doubt that East APPEARED I Central would not have won the 2007 Conference CARTHAG!N Championshi~ w_ithout the help and ded1eat10n of our SCOTT COUI players, managers and assis– tant coaches. UNION APPE "C~ach Avalon and Coach Martmez have been a tremen- WINSTON CC dous blessing to me and to the baseball program at East SPIRIT OF M< Central and I feel very fortu– nate to have each of them on OTHER our staff. -- "Although we got off to a

NESHOBADEMOCRAT _______ NEWTON RECORD ____ _ MERIDIAN STAR___ _ _ _ CLARION-LEDGER _ _________ IMPACT __________________

slow start, our players did a PTPM inh nf eontinuing to work