OXFORD, Ala. – Jacksonville State finished off a doubleheader sweep of Southeast Missouri in walk-off fashion as freshman Cole Frederick opened the 11th inning with a solo home run to lift JSU to a 7-6 win in the nightcap at Choccolocco Park.
With the much-needed two wins in OVC play, JSU improved to 18-13 overall and moved to 8-6 in OVC outings, while SEMO dropped to 16-20 on the season and 10-7 in OVC play. The two teams will wrap up the weekend series on Saturday at 1 p.m. The two schools bumped up the start time on Saturday to avoid the impending rain late on Saturday. JSU has now claimed its first series win over the Redhawks since 2013 when Jax State completed a three-game sweep.
The Gamecocks were riding momentum in to the second game of the twinbill after redshirt sophomore Garrett Farmer turned in a gem on the mound and the Gamecocks' offense broke open a 2-0 contest in the seventh with a five-run inning en route to a 7-0 blanking of SEMO. The shutout was JSU's seventh of the season, and the third against conference foes. The seven shutouts rank second in NCAA Division I Baseball. Central Florida has tallied eight shutouts on the season.
Farmer tossed a career-long 8.0 innings and fanned a career-best 10 strikeouts in the outing. His previous best was also in OVC as he went 8.2 innings against Eastern Illinois and tallied nine strikeouts. The Huntsville, Alabama right hander remained unbeaten on the season with a 4-0 mark. After giving up a leadoff double by Chase Urhahn, SEMO's line up did not get a hit off Farmer until a two-out single by Trevor Ezell in the sixth. The lone threat SEMO had against Farmer was in the first frame with a pair of Redhawks in scoring position with no outs. He preceded to strikeout the side to get out of the jam. SEMO finished with just two hits off Farmer and three for the contest off JSU pitchers. Junior Austin Brewster finished the game in the ninth. The three hits is the fewest allowed by the JSU pitching staff since limiting Morehead State to four hits and a run last season.
Farmer was able to pith with a lead after JSU recorded a run in the first plate appearance with an RBI single by senior Trent Simpson. JSU extended the lead with a run in the third with one of freshman Isaac Alexander's three RBI in the opener. Alexander's single to left field scored Simpson to give JSU a 2-0 lead.
The Gamecocks would break open the game with a five-run seventh after taking advantage of a SEMO error to start the inning and a pair of walks mixed in to the big inning. Alexander added two more RBI with a double down the left field line. After the pair of free passes, senior Hayden White delivered the second double of the inning. Alexander and sophomore Andrew Naismith had two hits each to lead JSU at the plate in the series opener.
The second game of the day became a see-saw battle midway through the contest. Jax State took an early 2-0 lead in the first at bat with Alexander's fourth and fifth RBI of the day. The Muscle Shoals, Alabama native, who had the previous walk-off home run for the Gamecocks earlier this season against Radford on February 23, turned in a 4-for-9 day in the doubleheader. SEMO got one of the runs back in the second before JSU extended the lead to 3-1 in third with a Naismith sacrifice fly. The fly ball to left field by Naismith scored senior Nic Gaddis, who finished the contest a double shy of hitting for the cycle.
Gaddis, who went 3-for-4 on the day and reached base four times, started the opportunity to hit for the cycle with a single in the first and then started the run-scoring third inning with a triple. After SEMO took a brief 4-3 lead in the fifth, but that advantage quickly evaporated with a two-run home run by Gaddis in JSU's half of the inning to hand JSU the lead back at 5-4. SEMO bounced back to equalize in the sixth, but Jax State's White smashed a solo home run to centerfield for a 6-5 lead. The Redhawks would knot it up at 6-6 with a run in the seventh.
It was another JSU freshman that gave the offense a spark as Christian Edwards finished the final 3.1 innings on the mound to give his offense a chance to win it in extra innings. Edwards, from Hartselle, Alabama, needed one pitch to get out of a run-scoring threat in the eighth. Edwards would go on to strikeout the next seven Redhawks and strikeout eight of the nine batters he faced. Edwards turned in career numbers with innings pitched and in strikeouts.
Frederick, facing SEMO's Daniel Bergtholdt in the 11th, ended it on a 1-2 pitch from the SEMO closer, who tossed the final 3.2 innings.
