MONTGOMERY – The Jacksonville State softball team capped its weekend at the Alabama State Black & Gold Tournament with a 7-2 win over Fort Wayne on Sunday.
Taylor Beshears homered and drove in four runs, while
Faith Sims tossed another complete game in the circle to lift the Gamecocks (6-3) to a 3-1 weekend in the state capital.
Beshears, a senior from Trussville, Ala., was 2-for-3 with a homer and a three-run double to lead a 10-hit attack by the JSU offense. The Gamecocks got support from the bottom of the order, as well. The last three hitters in the JSU order were a combined 6-for-11, with
Hayley Sims,
Jada Terry and
Anna Chisolm each recording two hits.
Faith Sims (4-0) capped her second-straight 2-0 weekend in the circle with her fourth complete game in as many appearances this season. The senior from Cordova, Ala., allowed just two runs despite the Mastadons scattering 10 hits in her seven innings of work. She struck out four and walked two, her first two bases on balls in 2019.
She beat Fort Wayne Starter Shaina Eyre, who surrendered six runs on eight hits in six innings of work. She also struck out five and walked five in the losing effort.
Beshears got the day started with a solo homer in the first that gave JSU a quick lead. It didn't last long, with that Mastadons tying the score in the home half of the frame on a Morganne Denny RBI single.
Back-to-back RBI from
Amber Jones and
Hayley Sims put JSU up 3-1 in the third, a lead the Gamecocks wouldn't relinquish. Fort Wayne scored one in the fourth on a Lexi Smalarz single, but Beshears' bases clearing double in the sixth opened the game up for JSU.
The final JSU run came in the seventh on an RBI triple by
Jada Terry, who missed a home run by just a few feet.
JSU is scheduled to travel to Atlanta on Wednesday to take on Georgia Tech at 4 p.m. CT before opening the home schedule this weekend with a three-game series vs. Southern Miss. The series will feature a Saturday doubleheader at 1 p.m. and wrap up with a 1 p.m. single game on Sunday and will be held at Choccolocco Park in Oxford due to the construction at University Field to repair the damage suffered in the March 19 tornado.
