JACKSONVILLE — The Jax State baseball team will return to Rudy Abbott Field at Jim Case Stadium on Tuesday, February 17, to host the Sun Belt's Georgia State Panthers. Action is set to begin at 4 p.m.
Jax State arrives into the match up wit a record of 1-2, hosting the Big XII's Cincinnati Bearcats to open the season. After falling in the first two days of action, the Gamecocks were able to salvage the finale and earn a 1-0 win to earn the first victory of the season. Grayson Ashe's solo homer in the second inning, along with a combined shutout effort from Beau Bryans, Maddox McDougall, and Skyler Hutto, earned the Gamecocks the win and kept the Bearcats offense to just two hits.
Georgia State is 3-0 on the young season after a season-opening sweep of New Orleans. Wesley Bass registered four hits in nine plate appearances and is currently slugging 1.000 with two doubles and a homer.
Jax State is 17-11 all-time against Georgia State. The series stretching back to 1981, a year where the Gamecocks both meetings, then won the game in 1992 when the series resumed. Both programs were members of the Trans-American Athletic Conference (TAAC), now the ASUN from 1999 to 2003. The conference rebranded to the Atlantic Sun Conference, now ASUN, in 2001. In conference meetings between the two, the Gamecocks took eight victories to Georgia State's seven.
So far this season, CUSA is 3-1 against the Sun Belt Conference. New conference member Missouri State took the series against Louisiana on Saturday in a wild 13-12 game after winning the first game 8-2 in Lafayette, falling on Sunday. Meanwhile, in Kennesaw, the Owls hosted a round-robin with Marshall and Evansville, with KSU taking down the Thundering Herd 10-9 on Saturday. Jax State hosts Georgia State for a chance to improve that record for the year.
This is game four of a nine-game homestand to open the season. It is the longest season-opening homestand for Jax State since 2020, when the Gamecocks opened the year with 12-straight home games.
Right-handed pitcher James Wilson will get the ball to start the game for the Gamecocks. Georgia State will send out Cole Roberts, also a righty, to start on the mound.
