OXFORD – The Jacksonville State baseball team ushered in its temporary home for the 2017 season with a 5-0 blanking of Bowling Green on Wednesday night at Choccolocco Park.

The Gamecocks, who started the season with 10 straight road games, were happy to play in front of its home crowd, which was a nice turnout in Oxford.  JSU improved to 7-4 on the season and improved to 10-6 in home openers under head coach Jim Case and have won five consecutive home debuts dating back to 2013.  The Falcons of BGSU, who have played their first 10 games away from the Bowling Green, Ohio campus dropped to 1-9 on the season.

The story of the night was the Jax State pitching staff as Case used eight different arms to collect the shutout.  It marked the first blanking for the Gamecocks since the final Ohio Valley Conference series last season against UT Martin.  Local product, Joe McGuire, earned his first start of the season and was stellar in his two innings of work.  The former Oxford High School Yellow Jacket fanned three and faced six total batters.  McGuire moved to 2-0 on the season with the short stint on the mound. 

The bullpen kept the Falcons off balanced for the final seven frames as six of the seven relievers tallied strikeouts.  The JSU staff finished with 14 strikeouts, which ranked second this season behind a 15 strikeout performance as a staff against Western Kentucky.  It was the third time that the JSU arms reached double digits in strikeouts this season.  Along with the outing at WKU, JSU recorded 13 punch outs at Dallas Baptist.

The JSU pitchers held BGSU to just two hits throughout the night with just one hit leaving the infield surface.  BGSU started the sixth with a bunt single by Nick Glanzman, but freshman Dylan Hathcock worked around the first BGSU hit of the night.  Greg Basalyga touched Nate Sylvester for a lead off single up the middle to start the seventh.

Along with McGuire, Hathcock and Sylvester, Tyler Wilburn, Grant Chandler, Cody Dodd and Justin Hoyt contributed an inning.

While the pitching staff was limiting the Falcons offensively, the Gamecocks put together multiple runs in the first and sixth inning.  JSU, who has scored 14 runs in the first at bat in the last four games, took advantage of BGSU starter Chandler Stillings' ineffectiveness in the first frame.  Stillings walked the bases loaded before another Oxford native highlighted the opening at bat.  Junior Trent Simpson lashed a double down the left field line, scoring a pair of runs.  Stillings would settle in and hold JSU to the pair of runs on the one hit in three innings of work. 

The Gamecocks pushed the lead out to 5-0 with a three-run sixth inning by stringing together three hits.  Junior Taylor Hawthorne extended his streak to 25 consecutive games reaching base with a walk in his first plate appearance.  The streak dates back to the last 14 games of the 2016 season.  He started the three-run sixth with a single to centerfield.  He would score the first run of the frame on a passed ball. After senior Josh Bobo had JSU's second hit of the inning, freshman first baseman Andrew Naismith had a two RBI hit up the middle, followed by catcher Nic Gaddis' single.

Bobo and Naismith were the two Gamecocks that registered multiple hits in the midweek win.

Jax State now turns its attention to an important first weekend in Ohio Valley Conference play as it returns to the road this weekend, traveling to Clarksville, Tennessee to face Austin Peay.  The Govs and Gamecocks are scheduled to get the series started on Friday evening at Raymond C. Hand Park.  First pitch is set for 6 p.m.  The weekend game times could be altered due to the weather forecast for the Clarksville area.

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