MAJORS VANQUISH CHOCS; EVEN MALONEY SERIES

On a magnificent spring day designed for baseball, the Millsaps Majors served notice Thursday (4/1/04) that they are indeed, for real, as they shut down the 9th-ranked Mississippi College Choctaws by an 8-1 count. The 27th-ranked Majors improved to 23-6 while the Chocs fell to 18-5.

The win also evened the Cowboy Maloney Series standings as Millsaps and MC are now both 3-1 with two games remaining for each squad.

Big right-hander John Fox (4-1) was dominant on the hill as he limited MC to just one run on five singles in eight innings of work. He walked four and struck out four. Todd Kindler mopped up with a scoreless ninth.

Millsaps roughed up MC starter Bo Newton (1-2) in the second as they scored four runs after two were out. Jason Hadley started it with a two-RBI single, followed by run-scoring singles from Nick Crawford and Ryan Skertich.

MC scratched for their only run in the third to make it a 4-1 ballgame. The Majors widened the margin to 5-1 on a Matt Renna solo shot to left in the fourth, his first of the year. They added another in the fifth on a Ben Wilson RBI single and two more in the sixth on a Skertich RBI single and Scott Staines' RBI fielder's choice.

Millsaps pounded out eleven hits on the day. Skertich (3 for 5), Crawford (2 for 4), and Wilson (2 for 5) led the charge.

The Majors continued their recent trend of two-out scoring as five of their eight runs were plated after two out.

Next up for Millsaps is a crucial three-game SCAC road trip to Hendrix. The Majors will play two on Saturday and one on Sunday. They currently trail Western Division leader and 4th-ranked Trinity by one game. Trinity is idle in SCAC play this weekend and will host Southwestern next weekend for three games. The two teams meet in Jackson for the final SCAC series (two games) on April 17th and 18th in what will likely determine the number one seed in the SCAC Tournament (April 22-25 in Atlanta).