On a cold blistery afternoon in Jackson the Generals (9-8) faced the Tigers of Northeast Mississippi State CC (6-5) for the third time this season. The last match-up was on February 18th as they split the twin-bill losing game one 7-2 and winning the second game 5-4. Yesterday the Generals couldn’t overcome the Tigers and fell 8-2 in nine innings.
Brandon Maxwell (7.66 ERA) started the day pitching for Jackson and threw 5.2 innings. Maxwell shutout the Tigers through 2.2 but then with a walk, a fielding error, a couple of base knocks, and a three run bomb by Caleb Todd Northeast established a 5 run dominance in the third, a deficit that Jackson would not be able to overcome. Kyle Brana (4.91 ERA) came in to relive in the 5th with two outs after one of 5 Generals errors extended the inning and finished Maxwell’s day a batter early. Brana gave up a homerun to Thomas Stevens in the 6th but apart from that pitched a solid 2 innings with 2 strikeouts and one hit batter. Derick Junker (4.41 ERA) closed the game throwing one and a third with one strikeout, one hit, and one unearned run.
The batting for Jackson had another quite outing as they amass only 6 hits and 2 runs. DJ Wright (.320 AVG) led off the 4th with a deep ball that dropped just below the scoreboard at Jack Martin Field for Wright’s 4th homer of the season! After that it was a quick three outs for the Generals. It wasn’t until bottom of the 7th that Josh Frantz (.194 AVG) would add the second run of the day with another homerun giving Frantz his first on the season along with his 4th RBI! Before Frantz stepped to plate the Tigers cleared the bases with a 3-6-3 double play keeping the damage of Frantz’s blast to only one run.
Ian Bibiloni, Donnel Bailey, and Mike Conn all had hits yesterday but never found their way around the diamond leaving Jackson with only 2 runs. All in all the Generals sent 32 batters to the plate and had 6 hits, 8 strikeouts, 6 grounders, 10 fly balls, reached on one error and hit into one fielders choice. The Generals saw occasional sparks at the plate but were unable to fan the flame and suffered their 8th loss of the season.
Where do they go next? Jackson plays Columbia State CC this Saturday in one 9 inning game that starts at 2:00PM followed up on Sunday with a doubleheader at Noon. We will have live coverage of all three games on WNWS.COM as the Generals look for their first conference win of the season.
Wednesday’s game is archived and can be listened to anytime at: https://wnws.com/livestreams/jackson-state-baseball/
By: Coleman Smith
