NEW ORLEANS, La. - The Jaguars' offense rolled in a high-scoring affair, seeing three separate four-run innings to propel them over the Green Wave.

The Jaguar offense got started early, responding to Tulane's first-inning run with four of their own in the top of the second. After Micah Morgan and Ethan Melton reached base with walks, Rett Johnson shot a laser beam of a ball off the right-center wall that scored both. Nathan Wood and Brennan Holt then slapped singles that scored the next two.

The three-run lead only lasted an inning as Tulane responded with three of their own in the bottom of the third, followed by another four runs for South. USA loaded the bases with one out, with Lucas Ismaili scoring two from a single through the right side. Morgan followed him up with an RBI of his own, then after reloading the bases with two outs, Tyler Borges walked another run in. Tulane's side of the fourth saw another two runs, making it 8-6 in favor of the Jags after just four innings.

Micah Morgan launched his second home run of the year to right-center in the top of the sixth, only for Tulane to take that run back with one of their own in the bottom of the frame. 

In the eighth inning, The Jags took advantage of a leadoff double by laying down five bunts in a row by Bell, Melton, Borges, Johnson, and Duncan Mathews, scoring four runs in the process. Micah then struck another home run to left field this time for the final run of the game.

Winning Pitcher: Tyler Smith (1-0)
Losing Pitcher: Billy Price (2-2)

QUOTES
Head Coach Mark Calvi

Overall thoughts on the game: I thought Rett Johnson's double early in the game was huge, going down one notch and then putting four on in the second, I thought it was huge answering back. Zach Stevens was good, and then he just made some mistakes. He landed some breaking balls, and then he didn't. He was okay. He's got really good stuff. I thought it was a check swing (on Marcus Cline's at bat in the Third), and it would have got us out of the inning, and with them only scoring one, instead they scored three. But that's the game, sometimes calls are missed and you gotta pitch around it. You can't hit a guy. Little things like that, but I give him (Stevens) so much credit. Again, not having bullpen work, inner squads he's learning on the fly. He's now started against Alabama hitting .310 as a team, and he started against Tulane, whose offense is just as good as Alabama's. So Zach Stevens is going to be just fine. I'm proud of our guys; the way they pitched and came in. But the story of the game was the whole team. I'll be honest with you, it was Nate Wood's pick-off with Micah when the you-know-what was getting ready to hit the fan. That shut them down early. We made one error early but we played really good defense late. Ethan Melton's throw (in the seventh inning) was outstanding and Duncan Mathews hanging on to the ball coming into the game cold. I thought Nate Wood today was absolutely fantastic. Got a couple hits and he was superb behind the plate. It was a team effort up and down the line. We played really good defense. We pitched well and we were offensive. We swung the bats and we played small ball and that's what they know we've got to do. That's what we have to do. We've talked about it. We work on it daily. It's something that's part of our game, and if you can't defend it, we're going to keep doing it. Even if you can defend it, we're going to keep doing it because that's part of our game right now. Credit to our younger guys for it, especially freshmen. We're probably the youngest team in the league. We're starting more freshmen than anyone else in the league. No one else is doing this, and our guys are hanging tough, playing really good baseball, playing together, and playing winning baseball. They were a nasty, dirty baseball team out there today, which is what I like.

On his substitutions late in the game: I put (Ryan) Storey in there because, you know, we had one out and it was later on in the game. It was in the seventh I believe, and I had a feeling like the game wasn't over. We had to score more runs. We had one out. I knew I had two outs to play with and I knew within the first two pitches we were sending Storey because the kid was a 1.4-1.5 to the plate and Storey should steal second base all day long. He should never get thrown out on 1.4-1.5 the way that kid can run. So again, you're looking for pieces, you're looking for ways to get 90 feet closer to home plate, and that was one of them today; pulling Nate and having Duncan ready to go. Nate did a hell of a job for us, and then it was his time to go sit down and Storey's time to go run for him.
UP NEXT
South Alabama continues their road trip west with a weekend series in San Marcos against the Texas State Bobcats, with the first game on Friday, beginning at 6 p.m.

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