MOBILE, Ala. | South Alabama won the weekend finale of the South Alabama Invitational presented by the Hampton by Hilton at Providence Park, scoring five unanswered runs to pull away from Southern 8-3 at Stanky Field on Sunday.
After South Alabama (6-6) jumped ahead early with three runs in the first, they answered a rally from Southern with five runs over four innings for the win. The Jags pounded out 14 hits in the win, led by
Erick Orbeta who finished 4-for-5 with a pair of runs scored and a triple – one of three by the Jags on the day.
Will Turner finished 2-for-4 with a pair of runs batted in and his sixth double, while
Cole Ketzner and
DK Donaldson each finished with a pair of hits.
Hunter Donaldson recorded his first home run of the season, an inside park home run – one of five extra base hits by South Alabama.
Sam Knowlton (1-0), the third of five pitchers, picked up the win by working 2.0 innings out of the bullpen and allowing just one hit with a pair of strikeouts.
Zach Willingham went 2.2 innings and allowed a hit with a pair of strikeouts, while
Zach Harlan and
Grant Wood combined for a pair of scoreless innings in relief.
How It Happened
- (B1) Turner hit a ground rule double to right center to score Orbeta before JG Bell singled through the left side and Diego Altamirano reached on a fielder's choice to drive home Turner, South Alabama 3-0.
- (T3) Khyle Radcliffe singled through the right side to drive home a pair before Hunter Tabb singled to left to tie the game, 3-3.
- (B4) Donaldson connected on his inside the park home run to left center before Colson Lawrence tripled down the right field line to drive in Orbeta. Turner ended the inning with an RBI single up the middle, South Alabama 6-3.
- (B7) Altamirano tripled home Joseph Sullivan before Ketzner singled to center to drive in Altamirano, South Alabama 8-3.
Up Next
South Alabama returns to action on Tuesday night at home against New Orleans, first pitch is scheduled for 6:32 pm.
Quotable, head coach Mark Calvi
Good way to close out the weekend with a win …
"It was good to close it with a win. We had multiple guys with RBIs, I thought
Erick Orbeta set the table today and then had six or seven guys behind him. We were good offensively and played a clean game defensively – good enough to win today."
Putting all three aspects of the game together, including the bullpen …
"Our bullpen was really good today. Willingham was good today just like he was last Tuesday at Tulane. The concerning thing is we had two bad starts this weekend in three games. When you watch, we won, but when you break down the things we did wrong – in a closer ball game, we will get beat by not executing. We are making too many 0-2 and 1-2 mistakes; we are giving up some hits on some hard-hit balls and we aren't putting guys away. We haven't had shut down innings when we score runs, we walked six today and that can't happen with too many free passes. We played good defensively, pitching has been good but there has been a trend that we need to break with making mistakes and opening doors that don't need to be opened. That's something we have to be better at."
Answering the bell …
"The three-run lead was great which evaporated, it's baseball and it happens. I thought our guys responded well and it's Sunday and we knew we had to win this ball game. Our guys knew that. We were ready and we have depth, and we are going to go to some guys when we need to and today was one of those days. We are happy to win but that is our goal. You see some mistakes in there today and we were lucky, we made some fundamental mistakes that can get us beat in some close ball games. It's the little things that we need to clean up."
Follow the Jags
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