Facing elimination and down 14 runs to No. 15 East Central after three innings, Mississippi Gulf Coast could have called it a season.

Anybody who followed the team this year knew, however, there wasn't any quit that group of Bulldogs. They stormed back to take two different leads before falling 27-21 in a game that took over 4.5 hours.

"I couldn't be more proud of this bunch of guys," coach Rodney Batts said. "Nobody in this ballpark gave us a chance when we were down 16-2 in the third."

The two pitching staffs obviously struggled to keep the offenses in check, combining for only four scoreless half innings all day. There were 44 hits, 19 walks and 12 hit batsmen on the day, plus six errors.

Every Gulf Coast player except one had multiple hits. Leadoff hitter Ian Goff scored five times, and nine-hole hitter Chase Rhodes scored three times. Andrew Ryals, who was the courtesy runner for catcher Brian Lane, scored four times.

Michael Shubert went 3-for-6 with a triple, and his sixth-inning two-run home run gave the Bulldogs their first lead at 19-17.

Brycen Burge gave Gulf Coast (25-21) its second lead with a two-out, two-run single in the seventh.

East Central, however, scored twice in the bottom of the inning and five more times in the eighth to put the game away.

"Nobody could get anybody else, and the microscopic strike zone was tough to pitch to," said Batts, who ran eight different pitchers to the mound.

Rhodes, Justin Nussbaum and Slater McCarty also had three hits. Goff, Lane, Burge and Taylor had two hits each.

MACJC playoffs

Best-of-three series

Friday

Jones 8, Delta 1

Meridian 5, Itawamba 4

East Central 11, Gulf Coast 9

Hinds 12, Northwest 11, 10 innings

Saturday

Jones 15, Delta 2 (JCJC wins series 2-0)

Itawamba 12, Meridian 5

Meridian 7, Itawamba 5 (MCC wins series 2-1)

East Central 27, Gulf Coast 21 (ECCC wins series 2-0)

Northwest 7, Hinds 3

Northwest 9, Hinds 2 (NWCC wins series 2-1)