OXFORD – The Jacksonville State softball team saved some dramatics for the 2017 Ohio Valley Conference Championship Game.
The Gamecocks scored two runs in the seventh inning to complete a comeback that saw them trail SIU-Edwardsville by four runs early before pulling off a 5-4 win and punching their ticket into the NCAA Tournament for the second-straight year.
After JSU watched the third-seeded Cougars (41-13) put up four first-inning runs, the league's back-to-back regular season champions went to work. The Gamecocks (40-10) chipped away at SIUE ace Haley Chambers-Book, who was voted the league's Pitcher of the Year, for the second time in as many days.
They got one run in the second and two more in the third to cut the deficit to one and then capped the comeback in the seventh. Trailing by one, freshman
Alexus Jimmerson homered to lead off the inning and tied the game. Senior
Stephanie Lewis followed with a one-out triple and then scored the winning run on a Chambers-Book pitch that went to the backstop.
JSU's own ace and First Team All-OVC selection
Whitney Gillespie shined with the lights on her. She homered in the second to put JSU on the board and then doubled in the fifth. She came to the plate with the winning run at third in the seventh, but Chambers-Book intentionally walked her before the game-winning wild pitch.
Gillespie, who started the game and allowed the four runs, all unearned, made way for senior
Taylor West. The Anniston native was stellar, holding the Cougars to just two hits in five shutout innings to earn the win. Gillespie returned to the circle to pitch a 1-2-3 seventh and ear the save.
Gillespie was named the tournament's Most Valuable Player after putting together a 3-0 record with a save and a 1.22 earned run average in the circle. While shutting down the opposition, she went 5-for-9 (.556) at the plate with three doubles and two home runs to also join Jimmerson, Lewis and senior
Jamie McGuire on the All-Tournament Team.
McGuire teamed up with Gillespie and Jimmerson for the third of JSU's home runs in the game, running the Gamecocks' season total off of Chambers-Book to six, almost half of her total of 13 allowed all year. McGuire's homer was a two-run blast in the third that made it a one-run game. It was also her third two-run homer of the tournament.
Chambers-Book suffered the loss after allowing five earned runs on seven hits and falls to 27-8 on the season. West improves to 16-4 on the year, while Gillespie notched her third save of the season.
The win gives JSU its sixth OVC Tournament title and its second in a row. The Gamecocks are the OVC's first back-to-back tournament champs since they won it in 2010 and 2011. It also secures the ninth 40-win season in program history and the second in a row, JSU's first consecutive 40-win seasons since 2008 and 2009.
JSU advances to the NCAA Tournament for the eighth time and the seventh in the last 10 years. The Gamecocks will learn their NCAA Regional destination on Sunday at 9 p.m. CT, when the NCAA Division I Softball Championship Selection Show airs on ESPN2. The team will host a watch party on the fifth floor of JSU Stadium Tower/Meehan Hall and all fans are invited to attend.
