March 11, 2008

CLINTON – In the battle for the coveted Cowboy Maloney Trophy, visiting Millsaps drew a game closer to the 3-0 Belhaven Blazers, knocking off MS College 8-1 at Frierson Field Tuesday night to improve to 2-1 in the series and 12-5 overall.

With the loss, MS College dropped to 8-9 overall after four-straight wins and 0-4 in the Maloney series, officially eliminating the Choctaws from contention. It marked the Majors’ sixth-straight win.

Millsaps (12-5) lit up the scoreboard first in the top half of the third, using back-to-back-to-back singles from Billy Murphy, Josh Ordeneaux and Jeremy Aliff to load the bases before a sac fly from Hunter Abrams drove in the first run.

The Majors dropped four more runs on the host Choctaws in the fifth and three more in the seventh, using freshman Tony Malaschak’s three-run homer (3) over the left centerfield fence to blow the game wide open at 8-0.

Junior southpaw Tait Hendrix cruised through the first 6.1 innings (career-high) on the hill for Millsaps and allowed just three hits and no runs to earn his third win of the year.

Hendrix walked the bases loaded prior to his exit with one out in the bottom of the seventh before senior teammate Brandon Ingram cleaned up any damage that the Choctaws would have caused by striking out the only two batters he faced to keep Hendrix’s line clean.

MS College showed signs of life in the eighth, loading the bases by way of two Millsaps errors and an infield single, but came up short a batter later with one out when Ingram forced Will Reed to ground into the inning-ending 6-4-3 double play.

Millsaps cranked out 14 hits on the night off three Choctaw pitchers, led by Malaschak who was 3-for-5 with four RBIs. Senior Derrik Boland (2-for-4) and Ordeneaux (2-for-3) extended their hitting streaks to eight and seven games, respectively.

The Majors will play a single game at Twenty Field Wednesday afternoon at 4 p.m. against Huntingdon College before opening conference play on the road at Austin College this weekend with a four-game series. All four games, including Wednesday’s gave versus the Hawks, can be heard on Jackson’s ESPN Radio 1240 AM.

**The 2008 Baseball Media Guide will be on sale at all home games for $5**