JACKSON – The top-ranked Hinds Eagles defeated 16th-ranked Northwest 12-3 and 7-4 Sunday afternoon at Smith-Wills Stadium to take over sole possession of first place in the MACJC.
Hinds improved to 31-4 overall and 18-4 in the MACJC while Northwest had a 12-game winning streak snapped in falling to 25-10 overall and 16-6 in conference play.
It was all Eagles in the opener, scoring 11 of their 12 runs over the third and fourth innings to cruise to a 12-3 win.
Northwest took a 1-0 lead through two innings after
Clay Casey tripled and then scored off a passed ball.
Hinds rallied to tie it at 1-1 in the third off Matt Jones' sac fly and then took a 4-1 lead off Tyler Cox's three-run homer to left. A missed called third strike on Quade Smith resulted instead in a walk which kept the inning alive and the Eagles rallied for four unearned runs.
A 30-plus minute fourth inning put the game well out of reach as the Eagles scored seven runs off nine hits to take a commanding 11-1 lead after four. It took three Ranger pitchers to finally get out of the inning.
Colt Smith (6-1) suffered his first loss of the season, lasting just 3.1 innings and scattering six hits, nine runs (five earned), four strikeouts and two walks on 80 pitches.
Kody Kimbrough hit a two-run homer in the seventh for Northwest and Chase Lunceford hit a solo shot in the eighth for Hinds to make the final 12-3 in a near three-hour contest.
In a back-and-forth nightcap that saw five lead changes over the final four innings, it was a four-run, two-out rally in the bottom of the seventh that gave the Eagles a 7-4 win.
Scoreless after three,
James Clark's RBI-double gave the Rangers a 1-0 lead, however, back-to-back-to-back strikeouts with runners at first and second and no outs cost Northwest a chance for at least another run.
Hinds tied it at 1-1 in the bottom half of the fourth on Jordan Washam's RBI-fielder's choice.
Lunceford's sac fly in the fifth gave Hinds a 2-1 lead before the Rangers rallied with two runs in the sixth off a passed ball and error to retake the lead 3-2.
Casey Echols' solo shot in the bottom of the sixth with two outs on a 1-2 count tied the game at 3-3, sneaking the ball over the fence in left by a mere two feet.
Northwest then rallied to retake the lead at 4-3 in the seventh on
Clay Casey's sac fly to center.
Ian Painter got a quick strikeout and fly out in the bottom of the seventh but then ran into trouble after hitting a batter and walking another and was relieved by
J.G. Lipscomb. Hinds tied it a batter later on Jonathan Washam's RBI-single and then Jordan Washam, who curiously changed bats with a 1-2 count, hit a walk-off, three-run homer on the very next pitch.
Northwest will try to regroup on Wednesday, April 22, traveling to East Mississippi (21-11, 15-5) for a 4 p.m. doubleheader.
