MARION, Ill. – Jacksonville State captured its fifth Ohio Valley Conference Tournament Championship on Saturday with a 10-3 win over Morehead State at Rent One Park in Marion, Illinois.
The Gamecocks, who also won the regular season crown, punched their ticket to the 2019 NCAA Division I Baseball Championship with the league's automatic bid. JSU's destination in the field of 64 will be unveiled on Monday, May 27 at 11 a.m. CST on ESPNU. The team will gather to watch the selection show on Monday at Struts in Jacksonville. It will mark JSU's fifth appearance in the NCAA postseason and the first since an appearance in the NCAA Oxford Regional in 2014, hosted by the University of Mississippi. The 16 four-team regionals will get started on Friday, May 31.
The also extended Jax State's winning streak to 12 games, the longest since the 2008 campaign and currently the second-longest in the NCAA. Central Michigan leads the nation with a 17-game winning streak heading into the Mid-American championship round. JSU will enter the NCAA Tournament at 37-21 overall, which ties for the most wins by JSU under head coach
Jim Case. Case's 2008 team finished the campaign at 37-21.
For the second consecutive day and the third outing in a row that the Gamecocks' starting pitching has solid. After the OVC Pitcher of the Year,
Garrett Farmer posted a quality start in JSU's 6-5 win over Belmont on Thursday, freshman
Isaiah Magwood turned in a career outing with 6.2 innings of work on Friday against Austin Peay to send JSU to the championship round. On Saturday, JSU turned to redshirt sophomore
Dylan Hathcock and he stymied a hot-hitting Morehead State club for the second time this season. The Tallassee, Alabama lefty kept the Eagles off balance in a 6.2 innings of work. Hathcock established a new career-high in strikeouts with seven in the outing. Against MSU on April 28 on Rudy Abbott Field at
Jim Case Stadium, he tossed a career-best 7.0 innings and limited the Eagles to a run on four hits.
After MSU took a 1-0 lead in the fourth on an RBI ground out by Dom Peroni, the Gamecocks answered in a big way, scoring all 10 runs over the next four innings. Sophomore
Isaac Alexander, who went 3-for-5 on the day, drove in the first run with a triple to the gap in right centerfield. Junior
Devin Brown, who joined Alexander with a three-hit day, delivered a double to left field for another run. Freshman
Carson Crowe added JSU's third extra-base hit with another double in the frame.
Brown, from Smith Station, added a pair of RBI with a two-out single to left field in the fifth inning. The Gamecocks scored half of their runs with two outs in the title game. Senior
Nic Gaddis pushed another two-out run across the plate with a single in the sixth inning and he later scored on a wild pitch with two outs.
Jax State kept the pressure on a depleted Eagle pitching staff with two more runs in the seventh inning. Junior
Alex Webb, who was named the tournament's Most Valuable Player, turned in a sacrifice fly with one out in the inning. Webb, from Columbia, Tennessee, hit .429 in JSU's three games, including three triples. He finished the tournament with five RBI and a slugging percentage of .643 and an on-base mark of .400.
JSU picked up an unearned run with sophomore
Cole Frederick scoring on an errant Eagle throw across the diamond. Frederick saw his 17-game hitting streak come to an end, but he kept his on-base streak intact after reaching base via a hit by pitch in the seventh.
The Jax State bullpen followed Hathcock's lead by allowing just one Morehead State run over the last three innings. Sophomore
Christian Edwards and junior
Corley Woods combined to allow one Eagle hit. Woods finished the tournament with a win in Friday's walk-off win over the Bruins and collected a save in Saturday's contest against APSU.
The 2019 OVC All-Tournament Team had a lot of JSU flavor to it as five members of the Gamecock club earned recognition. Along with Webb, Farmer,
Alex Strachan, Crowe and Brown were voted to the 13-man All-OVC Tournament squad.
