Jacksonville State University
Eastern Kentucky
Gamecock Baseball Travels to Eastern Kentucky
4/15/2021 4:40:00 PM | Baseball
JACKSONVILLE - Jacksonville State returns to the road in the Ohio Valley Conference in search of its first series win away from Rudy Abbott Field at Jim Case Stadium as it faces Eastern Kentucky this weekend in three-game set at Turkey Hughes Field in Richmond, Kentucky.
The series will get started on Friday at 5 p.m. CST and will conclude on Saturday with a 12 p.m. CST doubleheader. All three games wil be streamed on ESPN+ and carried on the Gamecock Sports Network.
The Gamecocks (16-15, 7-5 OVC) posted a series win over Belmont last week on the home turf along with an 8-4 Tuesday night outing over Kennesaw State. The Colonels of EKU (10-21, 5-10 OVC) will be looking for a series win after dropping 4-of-the-last-5 series, including last weekend at Eastern Illinois.
The two clubs have met 41 previous times with JSU holding a 28-13 advantage. JSU has won 13-of-the-16 series against EKU, including the last weekend series in 2019. In their last visit to Turkey Hughes Field, the Gamecocks routed EKU 18-3 before claiming the series with a 6-5 win. The Colonels salvaged the final game of the weekend with a 7-5 decision.
Jax State starts the weekend among the top-20 teams in NCAA Division I Baseball in doubles. Through the first 31 games of the season, the Gamecocks have accumulated 64 doubles to lead the OVC and rank 16th in the nation in that category. Western Kentucky and Vanderbilt share the top spot in the country with 72. Redshirt junior Nash Adams leads with nine doubles. Senior Jaylyn Williams and sophomore Carson Crowe have seven doubles each.
The Gamecocks rank among the OVC leaders in all three categories – hitting, pitching and fielding. Heading into the weekend, JSU leads the conference in overall batting average with a team mark of .286. Jax State leads the league in overall pitching with a 4.52 earned run average. Defensively, the Gamecocks rank fourth in the conference with a fielding percentage of .972 with Belmont and Southeast Missouri. In league games-only, JSU is listed among the top-three teams in each category.
