MOBILE, Ala. - Lucas Ismaili's three-run home run was the difference maker as South Alabama wins the series opener over Jacksonville State, 8-6.
Both Ethan Melton and Lucas Ismaili went 2-3 on the night with an extra base hit. Brennan Holt's at bat stayed lively as well but aggressive baserunning sent him back to the dugout twice while also notching an RBI. Duncan Mathews also reached three times on two walks and a single.
Experienced pitching versus JSU's experienced hitters became the show to watch, as the Jaguars dished out 13 strikeouts, eight by way of the bullpen. Carson Swilling worked through 4.1 innings with five strikeouts until finding himself in trouble with runners on first and third. Austin Mills immediately produced a play at the plate and struck out the next batter. Mills then earned another strikeout before allowing a walk, calling up a six pitch battle where a two RBI home run on an 0-2 count gave the Gamecocks the lead. Logan Wash and Gant Starling tag-teamed the seventh inning, striking out three of the four batters faced. Starling struck out another two batters in the penultimate inning, allowing for Grant Wood to shut the game down. Wood allowed a single with two outs but then forced weak contact to himself to send the ball to first.
Winning Pitcher: Gant Starling (2-0)
Losing Pitcher: Kyle Chastine (0-1)
QUOTES
Head Coach Mark Calvi:
On the pitching tonight: I told the team 'you know, they jumped Swilling in the second, there was some traffic, and then again in the fifth. Swilling is a real guy. He wasn't great tonight but he was forced to pitch a little bit. He overpowered his opponent last week with fastballs and they couldn't catch up. You know, it was 30 something degrees and it was opening night and he blew it by him. These guys have some better, more mature hitters and so we had to switch gears which I liked to see. You have to throw some right on right changeups. He couldn't just muscle some fast balls by these guys. So we had to pitch a little bit. I feel like his command was off. He needs to be better with his fastball command his slider needs to get better but I love the fact he mixed in his curveball and changeups tonight and hung in there. So he took a couple blows and he hung in there. I thought Mills was huge, huge coming out in the fifth inning and holding it right there. We took another punch, Mills took a punch, gave up the two run home run. They went up 5-3 and you know a little bit of bend no break in there. Mills kept fighting, was outstanding, got it to the next guy. Wash did his job and then Starling, it got a little bit dicey in the eighth with some walks but he's an experienced guy and he's got really good stuff and he's a gamer and he got through it, and then and then Woody (
Grant Wood) in the ninth. So yeah, I thought our relief pitchers were outstanding. Every single one of them, we need to be better. Swilling needs to be better. He knows that and I fully anticipate him being better next week.
On how the batters performed: You know, good for Lucas Ismaili with the three-run home run. Sully had a couple RBIs. I thought JG's 4-3 ground ball RBI was huge to pull us one run closer. and then obviously Lucas's three run home run there put us ahead for good at the end. We didn't get a bunch of hits, but we got the timely hit tonight. You know, we got some guys on and got the time we hit and it just happened to be an opposite field home run off the bat of Lucas Ismaili. So we'll take it. Made a baserunning mistake, didn't get a safety down.We had some runners in scoring position there late that we didn't get the job done that we need to get the job done moving forward. But there were parts of this game that were pretty, parts of this game were ugly. But I will take that in a win over a loss any day. So I'll take some pretty and some ugly and a win over pretty in a loss 100 out of 100 times.
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