OXFORD – Jacksonville State evened the Ohio Valley Conference weekend series with Eastern Illinois behind the career pitching performance of Colton Pate and timely late inning hitting with a 6-3 win on Saturday at Choccolocco Park.

After falling on Friday night to the Panthers, 7-5, the Gamecocks bounced back to force a rubber game of the series on Sunday at 1 p.m. at Choccolocco Park in Oxford, Alabama.  JSU notched its first OVC win of the season, halting a four-game skid to start league play and evened its overall mark at 9-9.  EIU fell to 2-15 on the season and 1-1 in the OVC.

Pate, a junior from Lincoln, Alabama, was stellar on the mound for Jax State as he established new career highs in strikeouts and innings pitched.  He fanned a career-high 14 EIU batters in the seven innings he pitched.  The right hander scattered three Panther hits and did not give up a run and limited EIU to just two free passes.  He joins sophomore Derrick Adams as the second Gamecock pitcher to record 10-plus strikeouts in a single game this season.  Adams posted 10 strikeouts at Western Kentucky.  Pate's 14 strikeouts is the most by a JSU pitcher since Bill White fanned 15 batters against Samford during the 2000 season.  Junior Grant Chandler finished the final two frames for JSU and added two more strikeouts to collect 16 as a staff.  In two games against EIU, Gamecock pitchers have tallied 29 strikeouts.

While Pate was in a grove for JSU, EIU's Michael McCormick was matching him inning-for-inning until he ran in to trouble in the seventh.  McCormick work out of trouble in first and second without JSU pushing runners in scoring position across the plate.  McCormick allowed five hits and four runs in the loss.

After loading the bases off of McCormick, junior Clayton Daniel came through with a bases-clearing double down the left field line to break up the scoreless deadlock.  Hayden White followed Daniel with a towering home run over the right field wall to push the lead to 5-0.  JSU, who was held to three hits before the start of the seventh had three hits in the frame and add two more in the eighth as Dalton Etheridge had an RBI on a fielder's choice in the eighth to plate the sixth run of the contest.

EIU avoided the shutout with a three-run home run by Hunter Beetley.

Daniel and White led JSU offensively with multi-hit games.  Daniel had three RBI, while White had the pair of RBI on his first home run of the season.  Matthew Hammers and Andrew Naismith had hits in the contest.

The series concludes on Sunday at 1 p.m. at Choccolocco Park.  The game can be heard on the Gamecock Sports Network.  Tickets are available online at JSUGamecockSports.com and at the gate.  All fans 18 years old and younger and JSU students are admitted free at Choccolocco Park.