JACKSONVILLE – Jacksonville State could not carry over the momentum gained from a 13-inning walk-off win over Tennessee Tech on Saturday as the Golden Eagles jumped on the Gamecocks early en route to a 9-4 win on Sunday to take the series at Rudy Abbott Field.
The Gamecocks, 18-15 overall and 7-8 in the OVC, dropped their second consecutive league series and the second league series lost at home this season. Tech bounced back from an 8-7 defeat on Saturday to improve to 15-19 on the season and 8-10 against the OVC.
Sunday's rubber game mirrored the start of Saturday's marathon as Tech jumped on Jax State pitching early. The Golden Eagles, who scored five runs in the first inning on Saturday, did the exact same thing on Sunday against JSU starter
Jake Walsh. Walsh, who fell to 1-1 on the season, was roughed up in the first inning as he was touched for five runs on six hits. The Tech five-run first was highlighted by the first four Golden Eagles reaching base before an out was recorded. TTU's Chase Chambers had the key hit in the inning with an RBI double. An infield single by Josh Pankratz and a hit by Anthony El Chibani drove in the final two runs of the inning.
After staked to a 5-0 lead, Tech's Jacob Honea allowed the Gamecocks to creep back in to the contest with two runs in the third and found more trouble in the fifth before being lifted. Three consecutive JSU hits contributed to the two runs in the second for the Gamecocks. A one-out single by
Hayden White started the string of hits as
Gavin Golsan and
Clayton Daniel followed his lead with base hits. Daniel's single to right plated White for JSU's first run. Junior
Paschal Petrongolo lifted a deep fly ball to left center to score Golsan.
Golsan, Daniel and White led the offensive attack as the trip combined for six of the Gamecocks' 10 hits.
After the fast start by Tech, the Purple and Gold were quiet until the fifth as it would add two more runs off of Walsh. Chambers collected another double and scored on a sacrifice fly to right field for the sixth run and the seventh run was an unearned run.
Jax State answered in the bottom half of the inning as White scored his second run of the day on another RBI single by Daniel. Senior
Ryan Sebra tallied an RBI in the inning with a single to left field. With his fifth-inning hit, Sebra has now hit safely in all 15 OVC games.
Tech added a pair of single insurance runs in the eighth and ninth to preserve the road win in Jacksonville.
The Gamecocks return to action on Tuesday with a road contest at Kennesaw State on Tuesday, April 14 and a home outing on Wednesday, April 15 against the Hornets of Alabama State. Tuesday's fourth match up against the Owls of KSU this season is set for 5 p.m. CST. The JSU-ASU tilt is set for 6 p.m. at Rudy Abbott Field. Both games will be available on the Gamecock Sports Network.
