EDWARDSVILLE, Ill. – Jacksonville State broke up a 12th inning deadlock with five runs to open the final Ohio Valley Conference weekend of the season with an 8-3 extra-inning win over SIU Edwardsville on Thursday night at the Simmons Baseball Complex.
Senior
Clayton Daniel delivered the game-winning RBI in the inning on his 320th career hit, which brings him three shy of matching the program's all-time hits record and the OVC standard and four hits away from breaking Bert Smith's existing record of 323 career hits. Daniel started the game with a leadoff double to push his newly-established JSU and OVC career doubles record to 69.
With OVC Tournament seeding on the line during the final weekend of conference play, the win pushes JSU to 16-12 in the league and stands fifth, but two games out of second place. JSU moved closer to a 30-plus win season once again at 28-23 overall. SIUE fell to 15-35 on the season and 6-22 in OVC play. JSU improved to 5-2 in extra inning games this season.
Junior
Nic Gaddis, who had three hits on the night, reached base for the fourth time on a misplayed ball by the Cougars' infield, adding two more runs in the 12th. Freshman
Isaac Alexander added his third RBI of the contest with infield groundout. Senior
Hayden White, who went 4-for-7 at the dish, scored on a passed ball for the final run of the inning.
The Jax State pitching staff set a new JSU standard in its NCAA Division I era for strikeouts in a single game. The five pitchers used on Thursday combined to strikeout 22 SIUE hitters in the four-plus hour affair. The previous mark for punch puts in a game during the program's Division I days was 21, set against Michigan on February 25, 2000. JSU starter
Garrett Farmer posted another double digit strikeout total by fanning 11 in six innings. It marks the fourth time this season he has collected 10 or more strikeouts in an outing and had done that in four out of the last six starts. The Huntsville, Alabama native allowed a run on seven hits.
Farmer was staked to a 3-0 lead before SIUE plated the lone run off him in the fifth inning.
Junior transfer
Austin Brewster followed Farmer's lead with three strikeouts in two innings of work. Freshman
Christian Edwards ran in to trouble in the ninth as the Cougars pushed the tying runs across the plate to send it to extra frames. Edwards added a strikeout to the team total.
Senior
Trent Simpson, who picked up his first win of the season worked out of jams in the 10th and 11th as SIUE had the inning run in scoring position in both innings. Simpson tallied five strikeouts in two innings. Senior
Colton Pate worked a 1-2-3 12th inning, including a game-ending strikeout to set the new record for strikeouts in a game.
JSU jumped out to the 3-0 lead with an RBI single by senior
Taylor Hawthorne in the first inning and Alexander's two RBI infield single.
The two clubs will play the middle game of the weekend set on Friday at 6 p.m. A live audio link will be provided at JSUGamecockSports.com.
