Oxford – Three Jacksonville State pitchers combined for the program's first no-hitter since 2000 and the 18^th in the history of the program as the senior trio of Colton Pate, Grant Chandler and Trent Simpson combined to shutdown Radford in JSU's 5-0 win on Saturday at Choccolocco Park.

Pate, from Lincoln, Alabama, went the first six innings was sensational in his second outing of the year with eight strikeouts in the outing and allowed just two Highlanders to reach base.  He moved to 2-0 on the season and has accumulated 13 strikeouts in 11 innings-pitched this season along with not allowing a run and one hit last weekend against Southern Illinois.  Chandler was the first Jax State reliever out of the bullpen in the seventh and struck out three Highlanders in his six batters-faced.  The Madison, Alabama native made his 77 career appearance before handing over the no-hit bid to Simpson in the ninth.  Simpson, who had a home run in each contest, fanned a pair in the ninth and induced a ground ball out.  He belted his fourth home run of the season in the fifth for JSU's fifth run of the contest. The trio combined to fan 13 Highlanders and faced three over the minimum. 

Former Gamecock Bill White was the last pitcher to toss a no-hitter in 2000 against Alabama A&M. The last time JSU had a combined no-hitter was during the 1993 campaign after David Spence and Brad Angel combined to no-hit Miles College.  It was the first no-no in the Ohio Valley Conference since 2013 with Murray State's Cameron Finch tossed a no-hitter against SIU Edwardsville.  

With the win in the night cap, the Gamecocks (5-2) posted their second consecutive weekend series win and the sixth straight series win dating back to the final four OVC weekends in 2017.  After JSU won on Friday in walk-off fashion with freshman Isaac Alexander's walk-off three-run home run, RU (3-4) bounced back to even the series in the first game on Saturday with a 9-5 win.

The pitching staff was staked to a 4-0 lead after the Gamecocks' offense pushed four runs across the plate in the opening at bat.  Simpson, who started the contest in the designated hitter spot, delivered an RBO sacrifice fly to right, plating Nolan Greckel for the first run.  Alexander, the hero on Friday, came up big in his first plate appearance with a down the right field line, scoring Andrew Naismith and Nic Gaddis.  Naismith had an RBI following Simpson's fly ball.  Gaddis tallied his fifth double of the season before Alexander's two-bagger.  Naismith and Gaddis were two of three Gamecocks to have multiple hits.  Freshman Cole Frederick carded two hits in the contest.  In the twinbill, he had three hits along with Naismith.  Senior Clayton Daniel recorded a pair of RBI in the doubleheader on a pair of hits.  The Guntersville, Alabama product tallied his second career home run in the first inning of the opening game of the doubleheader.

The Gamecocks will make their second trip to Birmingham, Alabama in a week with a midweek match up with the Blazers of UAB.  The JSU-UAB contest will be played at Regions Park, the home of the Birmingham Barons in downtown Birmingham on Tuesday.  First pitch is set for 4 p.m.  UAB's weekend series at Arkansas State was washed out.  The in-state duel will be available on the Gamecock Sports Network.

Following the Tuesday contest with UAB, Jax State will travel to Miami, Florida for a three-game series with Florida International to open the month of March.