JACKSONVILLE – The Jacksonville State baseball team suffered its first Ohio Valley Conference series loss after Southeast Missouri claimed the rubber game between the top-two teams in the league, 11-2, on Sunday at Rudy Abbott Field.
JSU entered the weekend having won the previous five OVC series and eight of the last 10 dating back to last season's series with the Redhawks. The Gamecocks and Redhawks were battling for the top spot in the conference standings throughout the weekend, but the Redhawks will exit Jacksonville as the conference frontrunner with an 18-3 mark in the OVC, while JSU stands in second place at 14-4 with four OVC series left in the season. Jax State (26-12) will look to bounce back in the conference race next weekend as it travels to Nashville, Tennessee for a three-game set with the Bruins of Belmont.
The story Sunday was SEMO's ability to score runs with two outs in the inning as 10 of the 11 runs were scored after two outs were in an inning. While the Redhawks were getting key hits early, the Gamecocks were hand-tied by SEMO's Robert Beltran for seven of his eight innings of work. For the third time on the weekend, SEMO struck first with a two-out, two-run home run by Garrett Gandolfo.
JSU's two runs came early as it strung together four hits off of Beltran in the opening frame as
Taylor Hawthorne and
Elliot McCummings drove in the runs. McCummings finished the weekend 6-for-12 against SEMO. That would be all that the Gamecocks could do against the lefthander, who moved to 6-1 on the season. Beltran induced 13 fly ball outs by JSU. Justin Murphy finished the contest with a quick ninth inning.
After allowing two runs on four hits in the first inning, Beltran shit down JSU over the next seven innings. He retired eight consecutive batters until issuing a two-out walk to
Josh Bobo in the fourth inning. Jax State would not get its fifth of seven total hits off of Beltran until Bobo had an infield single in his next at bat in the sixth. Beltran ran into some trouble in the sixth after loading the bases with two outs before getting one of his seven strikeouts to thwart a JSU comeback. Senior
Gavin Golsan had a bunt single in the seventh, while Petrongolo had the final JSU hit in the eighth.
SEMO pushed a 4-2 lead through three innings with a four-run fourth inning. After two outs in the inning, back-to-back walks by JSU reliever
Derrick Adams led to Branden Boggetto's two-RBI single, followed by Gandolfo's third of five RBI on the day with a single up the middle. Boggetto picked up another RBI with a sacrifice fly to left field in the sixth. SEMO's only run that did not score with two outs in the inning was Chris Osborne's home run over the left field fence. Gandolfo finished his weekend 7-for-13 on the weekend and plated six runs.
Before heading to Music City for its series with the Bruins, the Gamecocks will travel to Montgomery, Alabama on Tuesday night to face the Hornets of Alabama State. The two in-state clubs have split the first two meetings of the season in Jacksonville. ASU topped JSU 8-5 on March 2, but posted a 7-1 win over the Hornets in their second visit to JSU on March 30.
The midweek contest and all three games at Belmont will be available on the Gamecock Sports Network.
