MOBILE, Ala. - The Jaguars' late seventh inning rally was not enough to keep New Orleans from taking back the lead late, as the Privateers won 7-5.
South Alabama again enjoyed a leadoff home run from Will Turner for the second time in the last week, giving early momentum to the Jags. Pitching was spotty for South, so the bullpen stayed active throughout the night with USA deploying nine arms and none finding success long enough to stay longer than 1.2 innings. New Orleans tied it up with a solo home run of their own in the fourth, marking only the beginning as three more Privateers scored in the same inning.Â
The Jags had no answer of their own until a seventh inning Lucas Ismaili double cleared the two runners already on to cut the lead to one. A wild pitch placed Ismaili one bag from tying it, and the Jags loaded the bases by way of a HBP and a walk. Duncan Mathews raked a single to the right of second base and scored two runners to give South Alabama the 5-4 lead.Â
The celebrations quieted in the following inning with UNO landing baserunners with no outs, and then loaded the bases with only one out. A single to right field scored two making the fourth and final lead change of the game. New Orleans added another in the ninth for good measure, but the Jaguars were unable to form a response.
Winning Pitcher: Jack Williams (1-0)Â
Save: Kyrin Tyson-Long (3)
Losing Pitcher: Cooper Cooksey (1-1)
QUOTES
Head Coach Mark Calvi
Overall Thoughts: Well, I told the guys "there's no one left on our schedule that you can play like that and beat." We walked 11 and we left 11 guys on base. So, we take into many good pitches with runners in scoring positions, some backwards strikeouts early. Turner gets us off at the homerun and we kind of just sit and it was lackluster offense and you know 11 free passes-one was an intentional walk, but 10 walks the difference was the difference was we left 11 on, they left 14. They walked us five times, we walked them 10. That was the difference in the ballgame right there, the free passes, that was the difference. Now there are other things but that was not, you know, really not having heightened awareness early in the game was some runners in scoring position.Some sloppy strikeouts early in the game with some guys on, taking some some stuff down the middle early in the count and late in the count, and then the free passes. So that was the difference in the ballgame right there. Both teams were right there, neck and neck with hits. They got theirs when it mattered. We didn't and they gave us less free passes than we gave them. That was the night in a nutshell.
On seeing them again later in the season: I think they're a very good team. We knew that. Our guys knew it. We have a lot of respect for New Orleans. They had a very solid record coming in. They played some good clubs, they've got some dangerous hitters. You know, we're moving on to Nebraska right now. We'll think about them again when the time comes for us to play them again, but right now we need to move on and need to play a whole lot better in Lincoln if we're going to have some success.
UP NEXT
South Alabama travels for their first road test of the season to Lincoln, Nebraska to face Nebraska. The first matchup is slated for a 4 pm start on Friday, March 8.
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