JACKSON, Miss. – The Alcorn baseball program outhit the Tigers (9-8) but were doubled up on the scoreboard as the Braves could not turn its baserunners into runs often enough in a 4-2 defeat.
The Braves (2-5, 0-2 SWAC) failed to record an extra base hit and stranded ten players on the base paths.
Redshirt junior
Jake Kieffer (0-2) will wear the loss despite only giving up one run on five hits while striking out three over 5.0 innings.
Sophomore
Tristin Garcia failed to log a hit but still pushed his on-base streak to 12 games by drawing a walk.
Redshirt senior
Jordan McGowan and junior
Jamey Fabre both went 2-for-4 while McGowan contributed a run scored.
Redshirt senior
Kyle Jenkins and sophomore
Jaden Smith were the two Braves to pick up an RBI.
Jackson State (5-4, 2-0 SWAC) stole six bases with six separate players without getting caught.
Starting pitcher Mario Lopez (1-0) got the victory, tossing 7.1 innings of work en route to allowing just one earned run and whiffing seven.
Harry Colon got the one-out save on only five pitches.
Equon Smith logged a triple for the second straight ballgame to go along with a single, RBI and stolen base.
CJ Newsome was an all-around contributor, going 2-for-4 with two runs scored, an RBI and a steal.
Chris Prentiss was the third Tiger to tally two hits, tallying a run and a stolen base as well.
Senior
Brandon Rembert was the first to get on the board with a single through the right side but that was all the purple and gold could muster in the first. Jaylyn Williams would do the Braves one better, pushing the first run across on a fielder's choice to put the blue and white ahead, 1-0.
Neither team could find any run production over the next four innings as Kieffer and Lopez allowed six hits but zero runs between them.
JSU would strike for those elusive runs in the bottom of the sixth, scoring three runs on an RBI-single by Newsome, RBI-triple by Equon Smith and the subsequent wild pitch that scored Smith.
Alcorn finally got into the run column in back-to-back innings as
Jaden Smith smacked a single up the middle to score McGowan in the seventh while Jenkins plated Rembert with a single to right field in the eighth to cut the deficit to 4-2.
The top of the ninth saw the Braves get two aboard via walks to Garcia and
Jaden Smith but the tying run was left at first base when Colon induced a 6-3 groundout to win the game and the series with a 4-2 final score.
The Baseball Braves will battle the Tigers in game three back on JSU's campus Sunday at 1 p.m. where it will try to salvage the final contest of the season.
NOTES
- The Braves fell to 101-160-1 in the all-time series against JSU.
Quoting Alcorn head coach Bretton Richardson
Overall Statement:
"Tough loss tonight, they played a little better than we did. We'll look to bounce back tomorrow."
#FearTheBrave
