JACKSONVILLE – Jacksonville State used a pair of one-run victories on Saturday to close out a perfect weekend at its home tournament at University Field.
The Gamecocks (10-7) held off Texas San Antonio 4-3 to open the day and then capped the day with a 3-2 win over rival Samford. The sweep comes a day after JSU scored a combined 20 runs in wins over the same two teams and gives the home team the tournament win.
The four games saw JSU hit a combined .375 and score a total of 27 runs. That Gamecocks offense was led by sophomore
Karsen Mosley's .667 batting average. The native of Saraland, Ala., homered, doubled three times, drove in six runs and stole four bases over the weekend.
In the circle, sophomore
Lexi Androlevich earned her second win in as many days on Saturday and capped a weekend in which she went 2-0 with a 1.45 earned run average.
Saturday started with a nailbiter against the Roadrunners (12-8), who scored two seventh-inning runs and had the bases loaded with one out but couldn't get the tying run across. JSU junior
Nicole Rodriguez (1-0) limited UTSA to a run through the first six innings before running into trouble in the seventh.
JSU scored first in the fourth inning.
Maddie Clay led off with a single to left and pinch runner
Lauren Hunt stole second and came in on Mosley's double to right center.
A Celeste Loughman solo homer tied the game in the fifth, but a three-run sixth gave the Gamecocks a 4-1 lead on two clutch hits. The first came from pinch hitter and sophomore
Kaley Warren, who lined a two-strike pitch inside the bag at first for a two-run double. The Arab. Ala., native's first career extra-base hit broke a 1-1 tie and put JSU up for good.
Freshman
Megan Fortner had the next big hit, a double into the right field corner that plated pinch-runner
Hannah Brown and proved to be the game winning run.
The seventh got off to a rocky start, with a Hannah Boring leadoff single, a Madison Washington one-out walk and a single by Kindell Brooks that loaded the bases with one out. Riley Grunberg doubled in two runs and Taylor Medina walked to load them again and chase Rodriguez from the circle.
Junior
Reagan Watkins came in and closed the door on the Roadrunners rally, getting a shallow fly out from Tori Villareal before catching Lauren Coerver looking at a 3-2 strike that ended the game.
Watkins earned her first save in relief of Rodriguez's gem that featured nine strikeouts. Erika Cortez (4-4) suffered the loss for UTSA, allowing four runs on six hits, while striking out 11 in six innings in the circle.
Mosely was 2-for-2 with a double and an RBI in the win, while Warren had a team-high two RBI on her big hit.
In the final game of the tournament, the Gamecocks struck early, getting two runs off Samford starter McKenna Gillespie to chase her with one out in the first.
Savannah Sudduth led off with a single, stole second and scored on another Mosley double, who scored on an
Alexus Jimmerson RBI single to make it a 2-0 game.
The Bulldogs (8-11) turned to Taylor DeCelles, who held JSU's bats in check and gave her team a chance to get back in it.
They scored one in the third on Lauren Jackson's first RBI single of the game and tied the game in the fifth on her second, but the Gamecocks didn't allow the score to be tied for long.
Jimmerson's second RBI base hit of the game followed Mosley's second double of the game and put the Gamecocks back on top, 3-2.
Androlevich (3-1) kept that lead in tact, working around a baserunner in each of the final two frames to close the first complete game of her career. The native of Lake Butler, Fla., struck out five and walked just one, limiting the Bulldogs to two runs on seven hits.
DeCelles (1-5) took the loss despite allowing just one run on four hits in 5 and 2/3 innings of relief work.
Mosley's two doubles and JImmerson's two RBI led the JSU offense in the game.
The Gamecocks will return to action on Friday, when they start a three-game series at Southern Miss in Hattiesburg, Miss. The two teams will play a single game at 4 p.m. on Friday before wrapping up the weekend with a doubleheader at 11 a.m. on Saturday.
