TROY – The Jacksonville State baseball team dropped its midweek contest with Troy, 12-5, on Tuesday night at Riddle-Pace Field.

After four games away from Rudy Abbott Field at Jim Case Stadium on the JSU campus, the Gamecocks return home for an Easter weekend ASUN West Division series against first-time foe Bellarmine. The series with the Knights begins a day earlier on Thursday due to the holiday weekend. First pitch for the series opener is set for 6 p.m., followed by another evening contest on Friday at 6 p.m. The series wraps up on Saturday at 1 p.m. Tickets are available online at JSUGamecockSports.com. JSU Students and fans 18 years old and younger get in free. All three games will be streamed on ESPN+ and carried on the Gamecock Sports Network.

The night started well for Jax State against its in-state rival with four runs in the first plate appearance. Senior Alex Strachan drove in the first of four runs in the inning with an RBI single. Freshman Brennen Norton recorded his second home run in as many games with the three-run home run just inside the left field foul pole. Norton, who has missed some time due to an injury, returned last weekend at Central Arkansas and powered his second home run of the season in Sunday's series finale. His Tuesday blast was the third of the season and second against Troy this season. He turned in his first home run as a Gamecock in the first meeting of the year between the two teams on March 9 in Jacksonville.

Troy began to chip away at the 4-0 deficit with a solo home run by Caleb Bartolero in the second inning. The solo home run was the only blemish on senior Dylan Hathcock's pitching line. Hathcock made his first start of the season with two innings of work. Hathcock finished with a strikeout in the outing.

The Trojans evened the contest in the fourth with a three-run inning that was aided by a pair of walks by the Gamecocks. Troy's Donovan Whibb had the big hit in the inning with a down to right field. The inning ignited Troy as it would take the lead in the fifth with a pair of runs and broke open the contest with four runs in the sixth. Bartolero connected on his second home run on the night in the sixth and capped off his night with a his third round tripper in the eighth.

JSU was held to seven hits on the night with two of the hits coming in the first inning. Outside of Strachan's RBI single and Norton's home run in the first, sophomore Mason Maners, senior Cole Frederick and Isaac Alexander had hits in the setback. The Trojans' bullpen limited JSU to three hits with an Alexander single in the fourth and did not issue a hit until Luke Coker's ninth inning single. Pinch hitter Kody Putnam registered a two-out RBI triple in the ninth.