SCOOBA — Following the winningest fastpitch softball season in school history, the Lady Lions of East Mississippi Community College open their 2015 campaign by playing host to nearby rival East Central Community College Tuesday afternoon on the Scooba campus.  

Entering her third season as EMCC’s head softball coach, Kyndall White returns six players from last year’s 27-22 squad that finished third in the MACJC’s North Division regular-season standings with a 16-8 division mark to extend the softball program’s current streak to six consecutive postseason tournament appearances.

With 15 first-year players on their season-opening roster, the Lady Lions will be without the services of their top-four leading hitters from a year ago in departed sophomores Corey Dawkins (.395), Meri Morgan Fortune (.378), Jade Albritton (.364) and Abby Roberts (.338).

Expected to lead the way for EMCC’s Lady Lions are sophomore infielders Kristen Mitchell and Kasey Stanfield, who hail as the team’s leading returning hitters at .333 and .326, respectively.  

Mitchell, from Clarkdale High School, returns at the shortstop position after scoring 35 runs in 45 starts a season ago. Stanfield, a New Hope High School product, figures to move over from third to first base this season after totaling 13 extra-base hits, 40 runs scored and 25 RBIs as a 48-game freshman starter.

Back in the East Mississippi outfield are New Orleans native Pepper Baker and New Hope’s Anna McCrary. Baker hit .252 with 11 extra-base hits and 26 RBIs as a 42-game starter a year ago for the Lady Lions, while McCrary started 24 games in the spring and capped the year by being tabbed EMCC’s Homecoming Queen last fall.

Rounding out EMCC’s half-dozen returnees are sophomore first baseman Whitney Lowe, of Pickens Academy, and right-handed pitcher Logan Smith, from St. Clair County High School in neighboring Alabama, who made nine appearances in the circle during last year’s injury-plagued freshman season.         

Along with Smith’s return, EMCC’s pitching corps figures to be comprised of newcomers Valiree Blair (Richland), Mary Kendall Ware (Winona Christian), Chandler Ellis (Vicksburg) and Jenny Reynolds (Benton Academy).

With the departure of all-state backstop Abby Roberts to the University of Alabama in Huntsville, the all-important catching duties for the Lady Lions look to be handled by the talented freshman tandem of Amandalyn Abney (Center Hill High School) and Emily Patrick (Senatobia High School).   

Competing for the starting nod at third base will be freshmen Marissa Landrum (D’Iberville) and Breanna Glass (Noxapater).  Challenging for playing time at second base are newcomers Miranda Crenshaw (Neshoba Central High School), Autumn Gilbert (D’Iberville), Molly McLeod (Clarkdale High School) and Sarah McDaniel (Gordo High School in Alabama), while freshman Jordyn Jackson (Hamilton) also figures into EMCC’s middle-infield mix.

Joining returnees Baker and McCrary in the outfield, Heather Abney (Center Hill High School) is back after sitting out last season at EMCC due to injury.  Blake Rigdon, a local product from Macon’s Central Academy, also seeks time in the outfield for the Lady Lions.   

EMCC’s Lady Lions, also the two-time reigning NJCAA Softball Academic Team of the Year for their classroom excellence, will then hit the road Friday to take on host Pearl River Community College and preseason second-ranked LSU Eunice at PRCC’s Wildcat Invitational to be played in Poplarville.

First pitch is set for 1 p.m. at the EMCC softball field.