CHARLESTON, Ill. – A combination of great pitching and timely hitting turned in to a recipe for an 11-0 shutout of Eastern Illinois by Jacksonville State on Friday afternoon at Coaches Stadium in Charleston, Illinois.
The Gamecocks pulled even in conference play at 2-2 and improved to 11-5 overall with the series-opening win, while EIU dropped its home opener and fell to 7-9 on the season. The two clubs will continue the Ohio Valley Conference weekend series on Saturday at 1 p.m. The game will be available on the OVC Digital Network.
Going back to last Sunday's 13-0 win over Austin Peay, JSU has out-scored its last two OVC foes 24-0 and have put back-to-back blankings of an OVC for the first time since 2008. Jax State turned in a pair of shutout wins over EIU in the final two games of the series. The blanking is also the fourth of the year for JSU.
Redshirt sophomore Garrett Farmer registered a career high in innings pitched and matched his career high in total strikeouts. Farmer (2-0) nearly posted a complete game shutout before being lifted with two outs in the eighth. The Huntsville, Alabama righty matched his career high with nine strikeouts versus EIU. He also fanned nine batters in six innings of work against Radford earlier this year. Farmer scattered four hits and did not allow a Panther to reach second base until his third walk of the day and moving the Panther with the four hit in to scoring position. Farmer was the recipient of great defense behind him as he induced three double plays to help him limit his pitch count to 92 pitches on the day. Sophomore Corley Wood finished the final 1.1 innings with a pair of strikeouts and touched for a hit in the ninth.
While Farmer was dominate on the bump. The Gamecocks' bats came through in scoring situations and took advantage of 11 walks by four of the five EIU pitchers used in the opener. JSU scored multiple runs in three different innings, beginning with junior Nic Gaddis' bases-clearing double in the second inning. Gaddis was one of three Gamecocks with multiple hits as the catcher from Trenton, Georgia would add another double in the seventh. Gaddis entered the weekend as the OVC's leader in doubles, now has 11 on the season. He also reached base two more times with a pair of walks.
After JSU added a run in the third on one of freshman Cole Frederick's three hits on the day with an RBI single, the lead was expanded to 8-0 with a four-run fourth. Jax State put together four hits in the frame, highlighted by freshman Isaac Alexander's two RBI double. Senior Trent Simpson started the big inning with an RBI single. Frederick turned in another RBI single to round out the RBI in the inning. Frederick, from Tuscaloosa, Ala, put the final run on the board in the eighth with his first career home run to make it 11-0. He finished with three RBI and reached base four times on the day.
Alexander, from Muscle Shoals, Alabama carded his second hit of the day with an RBI double in the sixth. Sophomore Chase Robinson had a a sacrifice fly in the frame. Seven of the nine spots in the lineup recorded hits as Jax State finished with 12 hits and stranded 13 on the base paths.
Senior Taylor Hawthorne recoded a single in his third plate appearance and extended his consecutive games reaching base streak to 39 games, dating back to the last 23 games of last season. His streak is currently the longest in the country and shared with Will Brennan of Kansas State, who reached base on Friday against College of Charleston.
Sophomore Andrew Naismith nearly matched an OVC record for walks in a single game with five free passes from EIU pitching on Friday. The OVC record for walks in a game is six, set by twice by Murray State's Laverne Billinger in 1958 and Mike Whaley of Austin Peay in 1974. The last Gamecock to have five walks in a game was Paschal Petrongolo during a the 2014 season against Kennesaw State.
JSU will send Colton Pate, the OVC Pitcher of the Week, to the mound on Saturday. EIU will counter with Carson Haws.
