OXFORD, Miss. – The Jacksonville State softball team dropped a 2-1 decision on the road Wednesday night at No. 20 Ole Miss, snapping the nation's longest win streak which stood at 15 games entering the contest.
The Gamecocks (34-10, 13-1 Ohio Valley Conference) came up just shy of a season sweep against the Southeastern Conference Rebels, after a thrilling 5-4 walk-off victory last month for JSU at University Field. Ole Miss took its revenge on Wednesday with a walk-off of its own this time around, as Miranda Strothers' bases-loaded single in the seventh sent the winning run home.
Junior
Whitney Gillespie (16-4) was tagged with the loss after 6.1 strong innings where she allowed just one extra base hit and struck out two. Behind Gillespie, JSU's defense committed no errors and stranded six Rebels on base.
Jax State got things going early drawing walks from
Taylor Sloan and
Jamie McGuire in the top half of the first to put runners on with two outs. Sloan raced home from second on
Stephanie Lewis' ensuing double to put the Gamecocks on the board. However, the Rebels made a play on the back end to get McGuire before another run could cross the plate.
Gillespie shut down the Ole Miss offense through the opening two frames until a leadoff walk in the third made things interesting. The Rebels soon had bases loaded and no outs after another walk and single to center.
Anna Chisolm recorded an unassisted out at second for the first putaway as Ole Miss tied the game with the runner from third. JSU escaped without further damage when
Emily Woodruff zipped a line drive back to McGuire at home who tagged-out a potential go-ahead run at the plate to send the game to the fourth all knotted at one.
The two squads went quietly through the following two frames, before the Gamecocks put two runners on in the sixth before being denied their best chance the take the lead again. The Rebels shut JSU down again in the top of the seventh in a tied game with a trio of groundouts.
JSU returns to the field this Saturday with a doubleheader at Morehead State, followed by a Sunday twinbill at Eastern Kentucky for the league-leading Gamecocks.
