2016 OVC Baseball Championship Bracket
JACKSONVILLE – The Jacksonville State baseball team knew what it needed to do coming in to the final weekend of the regular season and it accomplished that goal on Sunday with a 9-5 win over UT Martin to complete the sweep at Rudy Abbott Field to clinch the No. 2 seed in the 2016 Ohio Valley Conference Baseball Tournament.
After Austin Peay had to vacate four conference wins earlier in the week, that left the door open for JSU to earn the No. 2 seed and more importantly, a bye in the opening round of the tournament that will get started on Wednesday at the Ballpark in Jackson in Jackson, Tennessee. The Gamecocks will open the tournament on Thursday, May 26 at 3 p.m. The opponent will be decided after Wednesday's opening round games. Southeast Missouri, the regular season champion will the top seed in the six-team field and also earned a bye.
The Gamecocks finish the regular season at 32-22 overall and 20-10 in OVC play, while UTM closes out the season at 19-35 and 9-21 against OVC competition. The 20 wins in the league is the most for JSU since it put 22 conference wins in the column in 2013 and the third time under head coach
Jim Case that it has collected 20 or more conference wins in a season.
Sunday marked the final home game for seven JSU seniors and it was two of the seven combining for five RBI in their last appearance at Rudy Abbott Field.
Gavin Golsan and
Paschal Petrongolo each had two hits to help lead Jax State to 14 hits off of UTM pitching. Both of Golsan's hits were doubles to left field, including a two RBI double that gave JSU a 3-2 lead in the second inning. Golsan's hit was one of four hits in the frame and chased Skyhawk starter Shane Seckinger. Sophomore
Taylor Hawthorne put together a 3-for-4 day at the plate and added a pair of RBI.
Josh Bobo, and
A.J. Reynolds tallied multiple hits in the contest.
After UTM added its third run in consecutive innings, JSU sophomore
Grant Chandler (2-1) entered in relief of starter
Derrick Adams in the fourth. Chandler strung together four straight scoreless innings for the Skyhawks , while JSU padded the lead with a pair of two-out runs in the fourth. UTM's Alex Evans, who completed the final 6.2 innings, looked to be out of the fourth easily with two fly ball outs to start the innings, but a hit by pitch to
Clayton Daniel began JSU's two-out rally. Hawthorne delivered a double to left center and
Tyler Gamble walked to leave the bases for Petrongolo. The Blackwood, New Jersey native came through with a single to right, scoring JSU's sixth and seventh runs.
Evans would limit Jax State until the eighth inning. The Skyhawks tightened the game to 7-5 in the top if the inning after an Andrew Castillo two-run home run off of Chandler. Case went with closer
Justin Hoyt to close out the eighth as he retired UTM with a pair of strikeouts and a fly ball.
JSU added a pair of insurance runs with Golsan's RBI double to left and a sacrifice fly by Hawthorne.
The OVC will release the bracket for the tournament once all of Sunday's games have been completed. Joining JSU and SEMO will be APSU, Morehead State, Tennessee Tech and Belmont. All of JSU's games will be available on the Gamecock Sports Network and all tournament games will be streamed on the OVC Digital Network.
