POPLARVILLE — The Co-Lin Wolves fell 5-4 to the Meridian EaglesThursday in the opening round of the 2004 MACJC State BaseballTournament at Pearl River Community College. The Wolves fall to28-15 with the loss.

In the other games, Pearl River whipped Mississippi Delta 11-0in the late game. The scheduled game between Itawamba and Hinds wasdelayed because of rain and will be played Friday morning at 10a.m. The winner will play Co-Lin at 4 p.m.

Due to rainy conditions, all games have been changed from 9inning to 7 inning contests.

Today, Pearl River meets Meridian at 7 and Mississippi Deltafaces the Itawamba-Hinds loser at 1.

“Yesterday, we outplayed them in every facet of the game and wegot beat,” said Co-Lin head baseball coach Keith Case.” The natureof the game dictates that sometimes. Our guys played hard. We cameup short. In the seventh, we could have made a couple of plays thatcould have gotten us out of it.”

Charles Moffett (6-0) was the winning pitcher working 1 1/2innings with 2 strikeouts and no walks. Chad Catalano worked thefirst 6 innings with 1 strikeout and 4 walks. Van Pope worked thefinal 2 innings with 4 strikeouts and no walks.

Absorbing the loss was starter Tyler Perrett (6-2) who worked 7innings with 5 runs allowed on 8 hits (4 earned), 4 strikeouts, 4walks and 2 hit batters. Ryan Belanger worked the remainder of thegame and allowed 1 hit.

Powering the Wolves with 4 singles was Casey Ginn. Diego Nucetesingled twice. Cole Zumbro doubled. Singling were Jody Britt,Justin Sykes, Jeff Waycaster and Patrick Williams.

Josh Morgan smashed a 2-run home run to lead Meridian. MichaelMurray tripled. Dillon Sudduth singled twice. Joey Lieberman hit adouble. Hitting safely were Kyle Ginn, Scottie Jacobs, Van Pope andToddrick Johnson.

In the first inning, Co-Lin went up 2-0 over Meridian. Ginnsingles and advances to second on Nucete’s ground out. PatrickWilliams walked on wild pitch as Ginn stole third base. Williamsstole second. Zumbro and Britt walked. Williams scored on aMeridian throwing error after the second out.

In the fourth inning, Co-Lin’s Aaron Guillot walked and stolesecond and third base on a bad throw by the Meridian catcher. Ginnmade it to first on an Eagle infield error and Guillot scored thethird run.

Meridian came back with two runs in the bottom of the fourth.George singled to cut the Wolves’ lead to 3-2.

In the bottom of the seventh, Meridian exploded for three runsto take a 5-2 lead over Co-Lin.

The Wolves came back with one run in the top of the eighth tocut the deficit to 5-4. Guillot doubled on a throwing error by theEagle infield. Ginn singled and moved Guillot to third base. Nucetesingled to right field and scored Guillot for the fourth run.

“Our guys were extremely ready,” added Case. ” I thought weplayed hard. We came out and battled.”