Mills-Derouen’s no-hitter completes sweep

D'IBERVILLE -- Freshman pitcher Dylan Mills-Derouen threw a no-hitter to top off a crucial Mississippi Gulf Coast sweep of second-place East Central.

The Bulldogs (21-15, 11-9 MACJC) jumped two spots in the conference standings with 3-2 and 3-0 wins at D'Iberville High School and finished a great night in sixth place after Mills-Derouen's heroic.

"It's amazing," he said. "It amazing to know these guys are behind me 100 percent. I'm glad I could produce for them. They deserve it."

Mills-Derouen evened his record at 3-3 after throwing 113 pitches. He struck out eight and walked five.

"His slider, they couldn't touch it," catcher Brian Lane said. "He kept it down in the zone. It was nasty."

Two of those walks started the seventh, and the runners advanced on a wild pitch.

But Mills-Derouen got a comebacker, a strikeout and a hard ground ball to shortstop Justin Nussbaum to end it.

"The no-hitter was in the back of my mind," he said. "I can't lie, it was. The man behind the plate was an animal. Without him this no-hitter wouldn't be possible."

Ian Goff singled to lead off the third, then advanced to second on an error in the outfield. Lane extended his hitting streak to 13 games with a double and an RBI, then courtesy runner Andrew Ryals scored on Michael Shubert's single.

Goff laid down a critical suicide squeeze in the sixth to provide a critical insurance run. That made it a little easier for Gulf Coast coach Rodney Batts to leave Mills-Derouen in after the two walks in the seventh.

"I told him (after the game) he was one walk away from coming out," Batts said. "I wasn't sure if he was losing it or not. The good thing was he refocused and ended up finishing."

Gulf Coast got great starting pitching all day. Three Bulldogs pitchers scattered eight hits in the opener.

Irby Dossett gave up two runs in his 5.1 innings of work. He gave way to Destin Aime with the bases loaded, and Aime not only pitched out of the jam, he would go on to retire all eight batters he faced to pick up his second win of the season.

Brandon Kennedy picked up his sixth save of the season with a 1-2-3 ninth.

Chase Rhodes tied the game at 1 with a fourth-inning sacrifice fly, and the Bulldogs took the lead on Brycen Burge's bases-loaded walk in the fifth.

After East Central tied it up with a solo home run in the top of the sixth, Brian Lane's RBI double in the bottom the inning scored the winning run.

Tyler Evans went 3-for-3 with a walk in his return to his old home field.

"It was fun and stressful all at the same time," Batts said. "It's always good to win two, but to win two against the caliber of team as East Central is something else. Our guys showed a lot of grit and a lot of heart today."