MCC Eagles blast Lions

By By Robby Atkinson/staff writer
February 22, 2004
The MCC Eagles entered the second day of the 2004 Rush Classic with a 10-run win over East Central on Friday and on Saturday the Eagles continued to flex their muscles.
The Eagles used four home runs and a five-inning no-hitter from sophomore Chad Catalano to roll over East Mississippi Community College 11-1 in the second day of the Rush Classic at Scaggs Field.
MCC improved to 3-1 for the season and head coach Mike Federico continues to be pleased with his teams progress.
After retiring EMCC in the top of the first, the Eagles went straight to work on offense to take an early 3-0 lead after the end of the first inning of action. Michael Murray led off the first by drilling the second pitch off the wall in right field for a lead-off double and Joey Lieberman followed by flying out to center to advance Murray to third base and set up the first score for MCC.
Josh Morgan hammered a 2-1 pitch from East Mississippi starting pitcher Adam Reed over the wall in left center to give MCC a 2-0 lead over the Lions. Aaron George followed the homer by Morgan by reaching first base on four straight pitches and Toddrick Johnson followed with a big hit of his own.
Johnson delivered a double off the top of the wall in right field and collected an RBI to give MCC a 3-0 lead heading into the second inning of action. MCC scored all three runs in the first inning with two outs and followed the first inning with another great start in the second.
Adam Reed allowed three walks in the second inning and East Mississippi was forced to go to the bullpen early in the game. Stephen Boyd came into the game and got Morgan to ground out and end the possible scoring chance for the Eagles.
East Mississippi scored its only run of the day in the top of the third inning and cut the MCC lead to 3-1. Tyler Maxwell reached on a walk with two outs and later came around to score on a wild pitch by Catalano to put the Lions to within striking distance.
MCC went back to work in the fourth inning by scoring three more runs to extend the lead to 6-1 over EMCC. Kyle Ginn led the fourth off with a walk and Ricky Newman came up with a towering home run to left that put the Eagles ahead 5-1. Newman moved down to hit in the last sport in the batting order against the Lions.
Lieberman continued the great inning for MCC by smashing a triple to right and moments later scored on a passed ball to make the score 6-1 after four innings.
MCC finished the game by scoring five more runs in the fifth inning to take the run-rule win. MCC scored its first three runs of the fifth on two errors in the field by East Mississippi and Van Pope ended the game by driving a home run on top of the hill in left to give MCC the 11-1 win.
Catalano picked up the win and pitched five innings of no-hit baseball and recorded five strikeouts, while surrendering just two walks.