Baseball to host Northwest in MACJC first round

4/30/2014 10:55:00 AM

Luke Reynolds (11) leads Hinds in batting average (.377) and stolen bases (12)

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Joe G. Moss Field on the Raymond Campus of Hinds Community College will be the site of this weekend's first round of the Mississippi Association of Community and Junior Colleges (MACJC) baseball playoffs between Hinds and Northwest Community College.

Hinds (27-16 overall, 17-7 in the South) ended the regular season on Saturday as the second place seed out of the South division, thus earning the right to host the first round and will welcome Northwest (30-14 overall, 16-8 in the North), the third place seed in the North, to town for a best two-of-three series beginning on Friday night.

The series will open on Friday night at 6 p.m. at Joe G. Moss Field, with game two starting at 1 p.m. on Saturday. If a third game is necessary, the two teams will square off approximately 30 minutes after the opening game on Saturday has ended.

Both teams will enter this weekend's action on impressive hot streaks, as Hinds has won 23 of their 31 contests, while the Rangers of Northwest have won 19 of their last 24 games. Northwest also enters the best-of-three set ranked No. 20 in the latest National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) poll.

Hinds is hitting .311 as a team, led by freshman third baseman Luke Reynolds (Forest), who is hitting a team-leading .377 and also has 10 doubles, two triples, two home runs and 15 RBI, to go along with a team-leading 37 runs scored, 12 stolen bases and .488 on-base percentage.

Freshman first baseman Marshall Boggs (Cleveland) is the team leader in doubles with 13 and narrowly trails Reynolds in batting average with a .354 mark. Chase Lunceford (Clinton), a freshman shortstop, leads the Eagles in the major power categories, including home runs (seven), RBI (32) and slugging percentage (.553).

The Eagles have a duo of six-game winners in Randy Bell (Woodville) and Austin Sanders (Madison) and a five-game winner in Casey Sutton (Monroe, La.).

Sanders is 6-1 with four saves and a team-leading 2.12 ERA, while Sutton is currently 5-2 with a 3.18 ERA in 45.1 inning pitched.

Houston Case (Brookhaven) has also been stellar as of late, as he sports a 2-2 record and 2.48 ERA in 40 innings pitched. Hinds has an overall team ERA of 4.64 through 43 games.

Jay King (.437, 13 2Bs, 3B, 6 HR, 54 RBI), Kramer Hollenbach (.415, 12 2B, 4 HR, 40 RBI) and Taylor King (.381, 16 2B, 2 3B, 7 HR, 36 RBI) lead the Rangers at the plate.

On the mound, Northwest boasts a 3.40 team ERA, led by a pair of six-game winners in Matt Ferguson (6-3, 3.30) and Tanner Cable (6-2, 4.27). Domenick Carlini (3-2, 2.44, 2 SV, 3 CG) will get the Game 1 start. If needed, all-time saves leader Tyler Scholl (1-0, 0.39, 6 SV) will be available and ready.

The Eagles of Hinds are coming off a week in which they split a pair of doubleheaders against East Central Community College and Pearl River Community College.

Hinds hosted East Central on Saturday in the 2014 regular season finale and after losing the opener, 14-3, the Eagles stormed back from a 4-0 deficit to win game two by the score of 5-4.

Sanders threw a scoreless seventh inning in the second game and was able to pick up the victory in relief to move to 6-1 on the season.

Bell took the loss on the hill in the first game to fall to 6-4 on the campaign.

In Wednesday's doubleheader split at Pearl River, the Eagles dropped game one, 7-6, before coming back to win the nightcap, 3-0.

Hinds claimed the shutout in the second game behind the mound efforts of Case, as the freshman right-hander threw a complete game, allowing only three hits and one walk while striking out five hitters to move to 2-2 on the season.

On the offensive side of things, it was Reynolds who provided the punch, as the freshman third baseman had five hits in the two-game set.

Caleb Upton (Natchez) and Casey Echols (Braxton) each had three hits in the doubleheader and Tyler Cox (Brandon) hit his third home run of the season in the first game.

Sanders took his first loss of the season in the opener despite a stellar relief outing.

All of this weekend's games will be live streamed w/audio provided.

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Baseball to host Northwest in MACJC first round

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