LORMAN, Miss. – The Alcorn State University baseball program got a masterful pitching performance from senior Jose Fernandez as the Braves clinched its first series victory of 2019 with an 8-4 win over Alabama A&M on Saturday.
Fernandez (3-2) earned the victory, hurling seven innings of two-run ball (one earned) and accumulating a career-high eight strikeouts, limiting the Bulldogs to just four hits in the process.
Junior Micah Walker followed up his walk-off from a night prior with a 2-for-4 afternoon while notching two RBIs and two runs scored as well as a walk.
Senior Brandon Barna was the other Braves batter to record a multi-RBI game, also garnering two hits and two RBIs while coming around to score once.
Senior Kirt Cormier was effective at the plate, going 3-for-4 while walking once, driving in one RBI and scoring once.
The game started off inauspiciously for Alcorn, as the second pitch of the game was a routine groundball turned error which eventually came across to give AAMU a 1-0 first inning lead. The home nine would get that run back in the bottom of the second as junior Trey Covert took advantage of a Bulldogs miscue with a shot to centerfield, plating Cormier and knotting the score at one.
The purple and gold took its first lead of the ballgame in the third as AAMU committed another costly error to bring home run number two, before Cormier drove in the second run of the inning to make it 3-1 Braves. Alabama A&M pulled closer in the fourth with a run but it could've been a lot worse as Fernandez got Alcorn out of a bases loaded dilemma with one down by inducing a flyout and groundout to end the frame, 3-2 Alcorn.
Neither side could get anything going over the next two and a half innings as the seventh inning stretch came and gone with the score remaining at 3-2. The Braves would put this one to bed in the bottom of the seventh, scoring five runs on four hits and benefitting from two more costly Bulldog errors to widen the gap to 8-3 Alcorn.
The top of the ninth saw things get a little dicey for the home crowd as two runs scored and the tying run stood in the on-deck circle but sophomore Jacob Kieffer finished the job, sending the Braves faithful home smiling with an 8-4, series-clinching victory.
Alcorn baseball will look for its first series sweep of the campaign tomorrow as it hosts Alabama A&M in the finale at 1 p.m.
Quoting Alcorn head coach Bretton Richardson
Opening Statement
"Overall, it was a good day, got an opportunity to come out and play a baseball game. More importantly we got an opportunity to get a win, which we did. Guys came out and played well, Jose [Fernandez] pitched his behind off, offense backed him up, 13 hits, still not pleased with that error column but we're going to continue to get better in that area but overall it was a very good day for us."
Cashing In On The Bulldog Errors
"That's what good teams do, whenever you make a mistake against a good team, they're going to capitalize on that and that's why when you do play a good ballclub and you make some errors they capitalize on that. Fortunately, today we were able to capitalize on their mistakes and that's why we were able to put the runs on the board like we were today."
On Jose Fernandez's Outing
"Obviously he did a good job, he shouldn't have been down 1-0, first hitter of the game was a groundball to my shortstop for an error but he was able to maneuver his way out of that and kept us in the ballgame until our bats came alive and we were able to score some runs for him. He did a heck of a job, three of his last four starts have been like that so from a consistency standpoint, he's getting to where we want him to be. Very happy with the way he threw the ball today, hopefully he'll continue to do that for the rest of the season."
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