SCOOBA – The East Mississippi Community College baseball team opened the 2025 season by winning three of four games from Marion Military Institute during a home-and-home series played this past week. The Lions swept MMI 2-0 and 5-1 during Thursday’s doubleheader played in Scooba before splitting with the Tigers two days later with a 13-3 win followed by a 10-7 loss in Marion, Alabama.

In Thursday’s season opener played at EMCC’s Gerald Poole Field, the Lions made a pair of fifth-inning runs stand up while taking a 2-0 victory in seven innings. Catcher Josh King, a transfer from Jones College, started the inning with a single and later came around to score on an error. Ty Murphy later walked, stole second, advanced on the error and was walked home to complete the game’s minimal scoring.

Miles Mitchell, Jayson Smith Jr., and Jackson Rodgers also had singles for the Lions in the season opener. EMCC sophomore Luke Sides picked up his fourth career win by throwing 3.1 innings of scoreless relief behind starting pitcher Trace Tingle in the combined five-hit shutout effort. Sides only allowed an infield hit along with striking out three and walking a pair. Tingle scattered four hits with six strikeouts and two walks over the game’s first 3.2 innings.

The visiting MMI Tigers got on the scoreboard first with an unearned run in the third inning of Thursday’s nightcap played in Scooba. The home-standing Lions batted through the lineup in the bottom half of the frame, highlighted by Colin Boyd’s two-out, two-run double. Sam McClinton also had a run-scoring single in the four-run frame.

Mitchell capped Thursday’s season-opening action by leading off the fifth inning with his first career home run. The redshirt freshman infielder from Alabaster, Alabama, went on to close out the opening weekend of play by hitting a collective .667 (6-for-9) with three extra-base hits, six RBIs and a 1.222 slugging percentage.

Sophomore right-hander Sam Malone earned his first collegiate win following three innings of mound work with two strikeouts and a pair of walks. Chipper Moore and Evan Hilliard each contributed two scoreless innings in relief to close out Thursday’s sweep.

As the season-opening series moved to neighboring Alabama, the visiting Lions run-ruled MMI in six innings as they cranked out 16 hits to produce 13 runs in the first game. After plating a run in the first frame and adding a pair of runs in both the third and fourth innings, EMCC batted around to score six more runs in the fifth.

Mitchell continued his hot bat with a two-out, bases-clearing double in the big inning to cap off a 4-for-4 outing at the plate with a pair of doubles and four runs batted in. Caidan Bullard had three singles in four at-bats, while Boyd, McClinton and Murphy added two hits apiece in the victory. Murphy tacked on the game’s final two runs with his first career home run in the sixth inning.

Sophomore Matthew Birdsong picked up his second career pitching win by scattering three singles over 3.2 innings before giving way to relievers Tyler Harden, Jackson Crow and Otis Brooks III.

In the series finale on Saturday, the Lions let a 5-0 lead slip away when the home-standing Tigers rallied for five unearned runs in the fourth inning and added multiple runs the next two frames.

EMCC totaled nine hits as a team in the nightcap, including two hits apiece by freshmen Greer Manning, Jamie Muse Jr., and Caiden Chain. Manning belted his first collegiate home run to lead off the seventh inning, while Boyd smacked his third career homer with a two-run shot in the opening frame.

Bullard received the pitching start for EMCC in Saturday’s second game, throwing 3.1 innings with six strikeouts and two walks before the Tigers struck for the five unearned runs in the fourth inning. Harden and Elijah Young also saw mound duty for EMCC in the finale.

Coach Brett Kimbrel’s 3-1 EMCC Lions will return to home-and-home series action this week by playing host to Snead State Community College in a Thursday, Feb. 6, doubleheader in Scooba followed two days later on Saturday, Feb. 8, with a twin bill to be played against the Parsons in Boaz, Alabama. Both upcoming doubleheaders are slated for 2 p.m. first pitches.