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ECCC readies for tourney By Reed DeSalvo The Me' d1a Star Lions in a best-of-three series, 2-1. "We played really good "We've have had several opportunities this season

to bounce back from a bad performance," Hol liman said. "It's been an up-and-down year, and (we've been) trying to find the right lineup." Part of ECCC's recent surge has been due in large part to the health of the middle infield, Hunter Thrower and Maxwell Harmon, both of whom ''We didn't get our middle infield back and settled until 25 games into the season," said Hol· liman. Additionally, part of the Warriors' early-season struggles stemmed from virtually an entire new See ECCC on page B2 - missed a significant amount of time this season due to injury.

defensively," Holliman said. "We had timely hit ting in Game 1 and a tremendous pitching per formance irom Kyle Fultz." After dropping Game 2, 7-1, the Warriors rebounded in capitalizing on a pair of six-run innings to knock off EMCC Game 3, 12-3. "I told them (after Game 2) that if we don't play any better than that, then there's no chance of winning Game 3," Hol liman said. ''We obvi ously played a lot better and were able to swing the bats." And battling back from a disappointing outing is nothing new for Holliman and his squad.

DECATUR- Coming off a 2013 MACJC State Tournament title, East Central Community Col lege coach Neal Holliman and his squad find them selves able to defend that title despite having suf fered through an injury riddled and lackluster season. Yet the Warriors (20-24) had fortune on their side as they managed to sneak into postseason play with a sub .500 record, serving as the No. 4 seed in the ECCC began its post season run last weekend with an upset over the North's No. 1 seed, East Mississippi Community College, defeating the

r South Division.

"It was a great community project for us to take part of," Holliman said. "To help Mike Anderson, who runs the country club and used to be an employee of (ECCC) to help him try to clean up. We have sev eral players and former players from the Louisville area. They've got lives that are lost, and houses that are lost, and their lives have been really turned upside down. "In the overall scheme of things, (baseball) is not nearly as impor tant as we sometimes make it out to be." With the terrible weather behind them, and a chance at serving as back-to-back state tournament champions, Holliman says it will come down to his hitters regis tering quality at bats each time at the plate. "It's being a tough and contin uous out throughout the entire lineup, 11 Holliman said. I feel like we"re going to play sound defen sively, and we'll pitch well, and that we're going to give ourselves an opportunity to win. You have to have quality at-bats to compete at

win)." And while Holliman's focus remains on the matchup against Hinds, the sixth year coach con tinues to do is due dilligence in order for his team to emerge as tournament champions. 'The bottom line is that you can only worry about the game that is right in front ofyou at the present time," he said. "You have to win Game 1 to put you in the winner's bracket, and that puts you in posi tion to win the whole tournament. But I am also mapping out a game plan in order to win the tourna ment, and notjusl a single game. If you have absolutely nothing avail able after winning the game or two games, you're not going to win the tournament. "Whoever makes the crucial plays (will win). and it might even come down to getting some lucky breaks in determining who wins the tournament." While the tournament means a great deal to the Warriors, last week's tragic storms inspired Hol liman and his squad to take part in a community project for the city of Decatur.

ECCC from page Bl squad from the 2013 campaign. "I still don't think we've peaked," Holliman said. "We've battled some injuries early on. We had 22 new guys into our program, with 20 of them being freshman ... It took some time to make some things happen. We've lost some close games, but we're a lot better than what some people have thought." ECCC will have the opportunity to continue to prove the doubters wrong at noon Thursday against Hinds Community College in the opening game of the double-elimi nation MACJC State Tournament. The two teams previously squared off four times this season, with each winning two games in the season series. "It's two evenly matched teams," Holliman said. I feel like we know the guy real well that's probably going to be throwing for them, and they probably know the guy we'll be pitching for us. They've got a very solid ball club. Whoever can play the best on that given day (will

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