Box Score 1 | Box Score 2 Photo Gallery

JACKSONVILLE – The Jacksonville State baseball team earned a split with No. 19 Kennesaw State with an 11-4 win in the second game of a Saturday twinbill and the third game of a weekend series at Rudy Abbott Field on the JSU campus.

The Owls (5-2) claimed the weekend series with a 4-2 win in the first game on Saturday after topping the Gamecocks 14-8 in the series opener on Friday.  With the nightcap win, Jax State finishes the weekend with a 4-2 overall mark and will be idle till next weekend when it travels to in-state rival Auburn for a three-game series that begins at Plainsmen Park on Friday, Feb. 27.

The Gamecock bats touched the Owls pitching staff for 11 hits in the final game of the series.  JSU handed Gamecock starter Ryan Sebra a two-run lead after the first inning, but the Owls equalized with a pair of runs in the second.  Junior Tyler Gamble connected on his first of a four-hit day with an RBI single in the first frame, followed by a run-scoring single by sophomore Joe McGuire. Gamble, from Alabaster, Alabama, drove in three runs and walked twice in the second game.

JSU broke the 2-all deadlock in the third with a four-run, three-hit inning.  Gamble once again sparked the offense with a single to right that pushed Paschal Petrongolo to third base.  After a misplayed ball by the Owls' infield, Petrongolo scored to give the Red and White a lead that it would not relinquish.  JSU had hits from Hayden White and Taylor Hawthorne in the frame.

After giving up two runs in the second inning, Sebra settled in and tossed 4.1 innings pitched and posted a pair of strikeouts and four runs on four hits.  Freshman Justin Hoyt managed to get out of a jam in in his one inning on the mound.  Hoyt gave way to Graham Officer, who shut down the Owls' hot bats in his 2.2 innings of work.  Officer fanned four in his eight batters faced.

Jax State added insurance runs in the eighth with three runs off of KSU pitching.  Gamble picked up his fourth hit of the game to highlight the frame.
In the opener, it was KSU's offense that thrived with 11 hits, but managed just four runs in the win.  The Owls plated a run in the second on a Cornell Nixon RBI single.  Jax State starter Tony Urban got out of many jams in his five innings of work.  Urban scattered eight hits and struck out three in the loss.

JSU knotted the contest with a run in fourth after freshman Clayton Daniel started the frame with a single and would score on Sebra's ground ball to second.  KSU's bounced back in the top of the fifth after Justin Motley scored on Kal Simmons double down the left field line.

KSU added a pair of runs in the seventh on Brennan Morgan's two-run blast to left.  Morgan had a home run in each contest. 

JSU threatened in the eighth with a run off of Petrongolo's fielder's choice, but KSU escaped without further damage.  Petrongolo saw his 17-game hitting streak snapped with a hit-less first game.  He bounced back to have a hit in the finale.