NASHVILLE – The Jacksonville State softball team picked up a pair of wins at Tennessee State on Sunday afternoon, sweeping a doubleheader with the Tigers to begin a three-game series.
JSU (21-21) improves its overall record to .500, but more importantly moves to 19-11 in Ohio Valley Conference play, strengthening its position within the top four teams in the league after 5-0 and 5-3 wins.
Senior
Nicole Rodriguez pitched a two-hit shutout to open the day. She struck out 10 Tigers en route to guiding Jax State to a 5-0 victory. The Fort Myers, Fla., native, worked with a tight score for the majority of the game after an
Alexus Jimmerson single that scored
Shelby Newsome in the third stood as the only Gamecock run for the first five innings.
The Gamecocks got the first two batters of the sixth aboard, but it took a pair of two-out hits from
Sidney Wagnon and
Alex Howard to plate two big runs down the stretch. Wagnon doubled to right to bring home
Karsen Mosley, who initially reached base on a fielder's choice. Howard then stepped in for a pinch hit up the middle that scored Wagnon.Mosley and
Jada Terry would add RBIs in the seventh to extend the margin to four.
In game two,
Reagan Watkins went the distance in the circle, scattering just three hits through eight innings with JSU and TSU still tied after seven.
Megan Fortner's two-out, eighth-inning double pushed JSU back on top for the final time as Watkins retired the TSU side in the home half of the frame for the win.
Both squads scored a run in the first, but a two-run homerun from Terry in the top of the third put JSU ahead for the next few innings. Terry finished knocked in three runs total in game two, and four overall in Sunday's action. A two-out double in the bottom of the fifth for TSU scored one unearned run off Watkins, but JSU still led entering the final stanza. TSU evened the score with a solo homer in the bottom of the seventh, momentarily extending the contest for one more inning.
Newsome doubled and Terry walked to put the first two batters on base for JSU in the eighth, but a fielder's choice and a strikeout kept two on the bases before Fortner stepped to the plate with two-away leading to her winning double to left field.
JSU returns on Monday for the final game of the series with TSU at noon. It will be JSU's final road game of the regular-season before finishing with three-straight at home against Southeast Missouri next weekend.
