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JACKSONVILLE – The Jacksonville State baseball team returns to Choccolocco Park this week for five games in the span of six days, beginning with Tuesday's contest with Alabama State. 

First pitch is set for 6 p.m. at the Oxford, Alabama-based facility.  The Hornets will be the first of back-to-back in-state match ups as the Gamecocks and Troy renew the long-standing rivalry on Wednesday at Choccolocco Park.  The JSU-Troy duel will also be under the lights at 6 p.m.  Following the midweek set with ASU and Troy, Jax State bounces back in to Ohio Valley Conference play on the weekend, hosting the Bruins of Belmont in a three-game series.  The series begins on Friday and will run through the weekend.  Tickets are available at JSUGamecockSports.com and at Choccolocco Park gate.  All JSU students and fans 18 years old and younger are admitted free.

Tuesday night will feature free ice cream at Choccolocco Park, sponsored by AlaTrust Credit Union.  JSU students needing a break from end of the semester finals are encouraged to join the baseball team on Tuesday evening.

Nearing the midpoint of the 2017 campaign, the Gamecocks enter the busy week at 18-14 overall and 7-8 in OVC play after dropping 2-of-3 this past weekend on the road at Southeast Missouri.  After dropping a pair of touch one-run contests on Thursday and Friday, JSU bounced back in a big way on Saturday with a 17-7 win.  The Hornets, the defending Southwestern Athletic Conference Champions, are 17-19 on the season and 13-5 in the league under first-year head coach Jose' Vazquez.  ASU lost all three SWAC games to Jackson State this past weekend.  The Trojans, who will entertain UAB on Tuesday before making the trip to Oxford, are 18-16 overall and 6-9 in the Sun Belt.  Troy dropped a weekend series to Georgia State in Atlanta last weekend.

Junior infielder Clayton Daniel, who has played both second base and shortstop this year in a fill-in role, once again leads the Gamecocks offensively.  His team-best batting average rose to .336 after one of the best weekends offensively throughout NCAA Division I baseball this past weekend.  Against SEMO, the Guntersville, Alabama native turned in a 10-for-13 weekend at the plate, highlighted by his 6-for-6 performance on Saturday and delivering seven RBI to lead JSU to its 17-7 win over the Redhawks.  His weekend stat line included a .769 clip, a double and triple to go along with his four singles on Saturday alone.  He was a home run shy of hitting for the cycle.  Daniel reached base 15 times throughout the weekend with a walk and a hit by pitch.  He also swiped one base on the base paths and played error-less defense at shortstop.  Daniel has hit safely in 11 consecutive games and 13 straight OVC contests.  He has had multiple hits in 12 of the 15 OVC games this season.

Senior Josh Bobo posted a .500 average against SEMO, going 6-for-12 on the weekend with three doubles and a home run.  Junior Trent Simpson leads JSU in RBI, doubles and home runs with 37 RBI, 11 doubles and eight home runs. 

JSU's pitching staff numbers have been solid in the first half of the season as the staff ranks third in the league in pitching and second among OVC staffs in league-games only.  Jax State enters the week with a team earned run average of 5.05 and opposing teams are hitting just.264 against the Gamecock arms.  As a staff, JSU has accumulated 288 strikeouts and has allowed a league-lowest 296 hits and 187 total runs. When Belmont arrives at Choccolocco Park, it will bring the best ERA in conference games only at 4.22.  JSU is listed second in the league in ERA at 5.05 in OVC games. 

All five games this week will be available on the Gamecock Sports Network, while the midweek games and the Friday and Saturday games of the OVC weekend series will be streamed on the OVC Digital Network.