BATON ROUGE, La. – The Alcorn State University baseball program saw Southern jump out to an early lead and slowly pull away as the Jaguars claimed the victory by a final of 11-1 in seven innings Tuesday night.
Freshman Tristin Garcia, sophomore Andrew Meadows, junior Kyle Jenkins and senior Kirt Cormier accumulated Alcorn's four hits on the evening.
Garcia drove in the Braves' lone run on a hard-hit double in the top of the sixth, driving in Meadows from second after he hit a double of his own two batters earlier.
Sophomore Jacob Kieffer had a solid 2.2 innings in relief, giving up two runs and four hits while fanning four Jaguars.
Alcorn was held to a 1-2-3 beginning to the ballgame while Southern wasted no time getting on the scoreboard. The first six Jaguars reached safely with base runners swiping four bags in the inning to open up a 4-0 cushion from the get-go.
Kirt Cormier got the Braves in the hit column in the second with a sharply hit single to right but was erased two batters later on a 6-4-3 double play to end the frame. Senior starting pitcher Tyler Smith settled in after the rough first inning, going three-up and three-down in the second.
SU would strike once again in the third, as Bobby Johnson poked a seeing-eye single up the middle of the diamond to put the baby blue and gold ahead 6-0. Southern brought one run home in the fourth and another one in the fifth extend its advantage, 8-0.
The purple and gold would breakthrough into the run department in the top of the sixth. Tristin Garcia smacked a wind-aided double to the left-center gap to bring Andrew Meadows around from second to make it 8-1, SU.
The Jaguars pushed across one in the sixth and two in the seventh to put the game on ice as the Braves dropped its fifth straight contest to fall to 10-24 overall and 4-14 in the SWAC.
Tyler Smith (0-2) was saddled with the loss, surrendering six runs (five earned) on five hits over 2.1 innings. He struck out three Jaguars hitters.
Alcorn baseball will not have long to dwell on the defeat as it hosts Tougaloo College tomorrow afternoon in a 2 p.m. matinee at Willie E. "Rat" McGowan Stadium.
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