RICHMOND, Ky. – The Jacksonville State softball team used two dominant pitching performances on Sunday to clinch the 2017 Ohio Valley Conference regular season championship.
 
Whitney Gillespie and Taylor West both tossed shutouts at Eastern Kentucky to seal The Gamecocks (36-10, 15-1 OVC) second-straight regular season title and their third in four years. JSU's 6-0 win in game one and 5-0 victory in game two over the Colonels (22-28, 9-9 OVC) secured the sixth regular season OVC crown since joining the league in 2004.
 
In its 14 seasons in the OVC, JSU has now won either the regular season or tournament championship in nine of those. They become the first back-to-back regular season champs since the 2008 and 2009 Gamecocks and will once again be the No. 1 seed in the OVC Tournament, which will be held at Choccolocco Park in Oxford from May 10-13.
 
The day started with Gillespie setting the tone by tossing a one-hit shutout in her win. The Pelham native struck out four and allowed just one single in the game to improve to 17-4 on the season and drop her earned run average to 1.11. She entered the day ranked 15th in the nation in ERA.
 
It was Gillespie's eighth shutout of the season and the 17th in her career, while her 44th career win ties her with Carly Kellam (2005-06) for the sixth-most in JSU history. She and West combined to hold the Colonels to a .106 average on the day, one that saw them muster just five singles in 47 at bats.
 
West allowed just four hits in her gem, also all singles. She improved to 15-4 on the season and 50-16 in her career, making her just the fourth player in school history to reach the 50-win mark. She and Gillespie have now combined for an OVC-best 16 shutouts this season.
 
While West and Gillespie were dealing in the circle for JSU, the Gamecock bats were combining for 16 hits and 11 runs against the Colonels. Jamie McGuire, Emily Woodruff and Anna Chisolm each had three hits, while McGuire, Gillespie and Leila Chambers all homered during the day.
 
In the first game, JSU got on the board early, thanks to two runs that scored on a Woodruff single to right center. That would be all the support Gillespie would need, but she would get more in the sixth, the first of which came from her bat.
 
She homered to straightaway center to start the four-run inning, one that also included an RBI single to left center by Chisolm and a two-run double by Taylor Sloan.
 
Gillespie (17-4) no-hit the Colonels for four innings before a leadoff single in the fifth by Amber Murray. Alex Sallberg (8-14) suffered the loss in the EKU circle, allowing two runs on four hits and a walk in 2 1/3 innings of work.
 
In the nightcap, West and Mollie Paulick took a scoreless battle into the fourth, when the Gamecocks dented the scoreboard. It was Chambers' big blast, a three-run homer to right center that gave West a 3-0 lead to work with and continued the Molena, Ga., native's onslaught of OVC pitching.
 
Chambers went 2-for-5 on the day, improving her average in OVC play this season to a team-best .477 (21-for-44). It was her team-best fifth homer in league play and also ran her RB total to a team-high 20 in league games.
 
A two-run fifth started with a Sloan RBI grounder and finished with McGuire's team-high ninth homer of the season, a solo shot to left center.
 
West struck out three and didn't issue a walk in her win, while Paulick (11-10) surrendered five runs on seven hits in her seven innings of work. She struck out two and hit a batter.
 
The Gamecocks have just two games remaining in the regular season and will close the schedule out on Friday with a 1 p.m. doubleheader against Tennessee Tech in Cookeville, Tenn.