RAYMOND — At this point in the season, Hinds Community needs home sweeps instead of splits.

Unfortunately for the Eagles, they had to settle for a split with East Central Wednesday.

East Central came back in game two of a doubleheader for an 8-3 win at Joe G. Moss Field. The second game loss drops Hinds to 5-11 in the Mississippi Association of Community and Junior Colleges South Division.

Hinds will be hard-placed to defend its MACJC state title, won last year at Smith-Wills Stadium in Jackson. The Eagles (19-15) are tied for last in the seven-team division and will need some help to make it into the top four to qualify for this year’s state tournament.

Hinds coach Sam Temple knows the tough spot his Eagles are with just eight division games left.

“We’re going to need some big sweeps the rest of the season,” Temple said. “I feel like I have the team that can do it. Today, we needed to score more runs earlier in the game.”

Hinds was held scoreless until the bottom of the seventh inning and trailed 8-0. Many of the problems that has hindered the team in division play has been up and down pitching and a recent spell of ice-cold bats. Both were on display in the second game.

“We’re just looking for some real consistency,” Temple said. “We’ve had some strange things happen with us offensively of late. Before that, we were giving up a lot of runs with our pitching.”

Former St. Aloysius product Sean Weaver started both games at catcher for the Eagles. He said the Eagles are going through a tough phase.

“We’ve seen stretches where either we struggle with our pitching or

struggle with our bats,” Weaver said. “Baseball is a funny game like that. In our first 10 games, everything clicked.”

Sophomore left-fielder Trey Prentiss, a former Vicksburg High standout agreed.

“We started out great, going 14-3, and then it’s been downhill from there,” Prentiss said. “The pitching wasn’t there at one point and then the hitting wasn’t there.”

Nicholls State transfer Cullen Babin kept the Eagles close with East Central (22-14, 9-7) for five innings. The Warriors had just a 1-0 lead through five complete.

In the sixth, Babin gave up a pair of singles and a dropped bunt loaded the bases. A walk and a squeeze play brought two runs in for a 3-0 lead. Carlos Lee got a two-run single and later scored off a sacrifice fly for a 6-0 lead.

East Central tacked on two runs in the seventh against reliever Carey Taylor for the 8-0 edge.

Hinds mounted a late comeback in the bottom half of the seventh against former Edinburg pitcher Mitchell Wooten. Waring, who faced Wooten in three games in last year’s Class 1A playoffs, led off with a single. Caleb Baucum followed with a two-run homer to make it 8-2. Adam Thigpen doubled and scored off an error to account for the 8-3 final.

East Central’s Willard Bacon went the first five innings and allowed just two hits to grab the win while Baben got the loss.

Hinds 4, East Central 1

Pierson Waring singled and the scored the go-ahead run in the fourth inning to pace Hinds past East Central in the first game of the South Division double-header.

Waring scored on Caleb Baucum’s double to left field to snap a 1-1 tie. The Eagles added two more runs in the sixth inning to up 4-1.

Tyler Akins, a freshman from Madison Central, had a strong start for the Eagles, allowing just two hits through six innings. Akins, though, gave up two hits to start the seventh and was pulled for Chase Wroten.

Wroten got a groundout and needed just one more strike to end the game, but suffered a fainting spell.

Weaver caught Wroten as he fell back.

“He called me out to the mound and said I needed to hold him up,” Weaver said.

Wroten was later taken to a Jackson hospital.

“We hope to find out about him later tonight,” Temple said.