COOKEVILLE, Tenn.  – Jacksonville State's A.J. Reynolds' three-run home run in the sixth inning broke open a tight contest as JSU opened a key Ohio Valley Conference weekend set at Tennessee Tech with a 9-3 win on Friday at Bush Stadium on the Tech campus.

Jax State maintained its spot atop the OVC standings with a 12-1 league mark and moved to 23-10 on the season.  Tech dropped to 19-13 overall and 9-7 against the OVC.  JSU will look to claim its fifth conference series of the year on Saturday at 2 p.m.

The three-run blast over the left field wall was Reynolds' third hit of the night as the Prattville, Alabama junior finished the night 3-for-4 with four RBI.  He drove in his first run of the night with a run-scoring double in JSU's three-run second inning that pushed the Jax State lead to 4-0 heading into the home half of the second inning.  Reynolds had help from another Prattville native as sophomore Taylor Hawthorne went 4-for-4 with two RBI from the third spot in the batting order.

While the offense supplied the Gamecocks' pitching staff runs to work with, it was another quality start for senior righthander Graham Officer.  Officer, from Milton, Georgia, scattered eight Tech hits in 5.1 innings of work and just two runs in the outing.  Officer notched his sixth win of the season and fourth in OVC play.  Tech's first run of the game was a solo home run in the third by Chris Brown.  The Golden Eagles touched officer for another run in the fifth.  The Gamecocks also played solid defense behind Officer as he was able to induced two double play balls that helped him get out of jams.

Officer ran into trouble in the sixth as he was lifted in the sixth after the first two Golden Eagles reached base.  Junior transfer Nate Sylvester was called from the bullpen in a tough situation after one out in the inning and runners in scoring position.  After being greeted by an infield single by Chase Chambers to load the bases, the Morrison, Colorado lefthander finished the inning with back-to-back strikeouts.

The momentum from Sylvester getting out of the jam with the game in the balance at 6-2 carried over to the Gamecocks' seventh.  Senior Paschal Petrongolo delivered a one-out single that started things for JSU.  Sophomore Hayden White extended the inning with a two-out single to give Reynolds his plate appearance in the inning.  Reynolds drilled the first pitch he saw from Trevor Maloney, who came in relief of TTU starter Michael Wood.  Wood took the loss after allowing the first four runs and 10 hits.

Sylvester would finish out the contest and allowed a run in the ninth.  He picked up his third save of the season after finishing the final 3.2 innings.  Sylvester recorded four strikeouts, which matches season-high.

For the 10^th time in first 13 OVC games, JSU tallied double figure hits after finishing with 16 hits on the night.  Clayton Daniel, Elliot McCummings and White joined Reynolds and Hawthorne with multiple hits in the contest.

Saturday's game will be available on the Gamecock Sports Network and it will be streamed on the OVC Digital Network.