Indians fall in state tournament, advance to Region 23

The ICC Indians saw a pair of big innings by the Hinds Eagles and Mississippi Gulf Coast Bulldogs end their quest for their first MACJC Baseball title since 2009.

In the No. 7 Indians (38-11) first game of the day, No. 20 Hinds (33-16) scored 14 runs with two outs in the top of the sixth inning to send ICC to the elimination bracket with a 16-5 victory in seven innings.

"They've done that all season," said ICC skipper Rick Collier. "They can score a lot of runs in a hurry and once they got it rolling we couldn't do anything to find that third out to stop them."

In their second game of the day, the Indians scored two runs in the bottom of the ninth when Kirk Roberts scored on a single by Jeremy Ferguson and Tyler Tipton scored on a wild pitch to send the game into extra innings tied 4-4. Gulf Coast (29-18) answered in the tenth with four runs and the Indians only managed a single in the bottom half of the inning in the 8-4 loss to the Bulldogs.

"It wasn't the outcome we were looking for, but I am proud of how the guys battled all game," said Collier. "They could have easily given up after the first game, but they kept fighting to give us a chance at the end of the night."

The North Division champs scored a pair of runs on a two-run double in the third by Channing Nanney after the Bulldogs got a three-run home run by Ben Slaton in the top half of the inning.

In their first game of the tournament, ICC defeated Gulf Coast 9-4 to advance to the semifinals. Zack Randolph, Williams Goss and Jake Smithey had three hits each while Tipton added a pair of hits to go along with home runs from Smithey and Cody Shrewsbury in the Indians' 14-hit performance to help Ben Hudspeth improve to 10-0 on the season.

The Indians will advance to the NJCAA Region 23 Tournament this week at LSU-Eunice, with the bracket still to be announced.