DELAND, Fla. ? Brandon Sage allowed one earned run and recorded nine strikeouts in 8.1 innings to lead the University of South Alabama to a 9-2 win over Stetson Sunday at Melching Field. With their third win in as many days, the Jags took home the Bright House Invitational championship.
“Brandon Sage just pitched his heart out,” head coach Steve Kittrell said. “He really competed, and he had good stuff. He set the tempo for the game and just looked outstanding.”
Sage struck out the side in the first and seventh innings. He allowed eight hits and walked only one in his longest outing since a complete game on March 29 against Arkansas State.
The Jags wasted no time getting on the board. Clint Reynolds was hit by a pitch to start the game, then moved to third when a hit-and-run worked perfectly on Zach Grichor’s single through the right side. Ryan Bohanan and David Doss combined on back-to-back RBI singles to give the Jags a 2-0 lead.
Stetson responded with an unearned run in the bottom half of the inning after a dropped fly ball put Mark Jones on second base and Jeremy Cruz followed with a RBI single.
Sage cruised through the second, but the Hatters evened the score at 2-2 in the third when Casey Frawley hit what looked like a routing fly ball to left field, but winds gusting up to 30 miles per hour out to left carried the ball just beyond the outfield wall.
USA broke out with five runs in the fifth. Brandon Brown, Reynolds and Grichor led off the inning with three consecutive singles, and another run came home when Stetson third baseman Robert Crews misplayed Bohanan’s grounder. Doss followed with an RBI single, Jake Overstreet was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded, and Laird capped the rally with a two-run double.
The Jags plated a pair of insurance runs in the sixth when Brown again led off with a single, then came home on Bohanan’s sacrifice fly, and Overstreet delivered an RBI single two batters later to put USA ahead 9-2.
Sage retired 11 of 13 batters before hitting Frawley with a pitch in the bottom of the seventh. Mark Jones followed with a double to put two runners in scoring position, but Sage struck out Hatters’ All-American outfielder Jeremy Cruz to end the threat.
Stetson put runners on the corners with one out in the bottom of the ninth, and the Jags turned to reliever Michael Raia to close out the game. Raia induced a lineout and a soft grounder to second base to end the game and give the Jags their first three-win road weekend since April 14-16, 2006 at UALR.
Five Jag hitters had multi-hit games, led by Reynolds, who finished the week with 10 hits in 18 at-bats over five games. Grichor, Doss, Laird and Brown all had two hits apiece, and Bohanan, Doss, Overstreet and Laird each collected a pair of RBI.
South Alabama returns to the diamond Friday when it travels to Waco, Texas to take on tournament-host Baylor in the fourth-annual QTI Baylor Classic. The Jags will also face UAB and UC Irvine in their third tournament in the season’s first three weeks.
Notes: Reynolds extended his career-long hitting streak to seven games with a second-inning infield single ... Bohanan’s RBI single in the first extended his hitting streak to eight straight and 17 of the past 18 ... With Matt Jackson’s 8.1 innings Friday and Lance Baxter’s 6.2 innings Saturday, USA’s three starting pitchers combined to work 23.2 innings over the weekend ... Raia came on in relief with runners on the corners for the second consecutive game, and he again stranded both runners.
For more information about South Alabama athletics, check back with www.usajaguars.com. Season tickets for all Jaguar athletic events can be purchased by calling (251) 461-1USA (1872).
