MOBILE Ala. - South Alabama's (16-21, 6-11 SBC) late inning surge fell two runs short in Friday's contest against Texas State (19-19, 8-9) in the 8-6 loss.
An RBI single and a home run gave the Bobcats a 3-0 lead in the first inning. The Jags, while having at least one hitter reach base in each of the first five innings, remained scoreless. Texas State scored a fourth run on a fielder's choice groundout, but South pulled the deficit back to three on a
Lucas Ismaili solo home run.
Texas State tallied three two-out runs in the seventh inning for a six-run lead. USA answered with three runs of their own in the eighth inning. A
Josh Stevenson double was chased by
Ethan Melton's third homer of the season, pulling the score to 7-4, Bobcats.
One more insurance run for TXST made it a four run game heading into the home half of the ninth inning. The Jags loaded the bases on walks, then scored one run on a walk. A wild pitch scored the second run, and another walk reloaded the bases, but Texas State was able to scratch the third out before finding the tying run.
Win: Jesus Tovar (2-3)
Save: Carson Laws (7)
Loss: Mitchell Heer (5-1)
QUOTES
Head Coach Mark Calvi
On the progression of tonight's game: Mitch has been great for us this year. And I know Mitch isn't happy with losing or wasn't happy with his performance, but it happens, it wasn't terrible, but he hung around, you know, after giving up three in the first,he gave up one more the next five. I thought he pitched great. He didn't have good stuff with his fastball, but his cutter was almost a little too kind of blended with his fastball. They get into a couple early, you know, we worked like crazy to get on base. Tovar did a good job throwing his breaking ball. We left too many men on to be honest with you, tonight. All you can ask, pitch and play good defense. We made a couple defensive miscues. We weren't as sharp on the mound all the way through the game, especially in the middle innings, as we needed to be, and we put ourselves in position to win the game, but we just left too many guys out there. Again, we were a big knock away, and our guys fought like crazy till the end. The good thing is, we got to their two best pen arms today, and had we just gone up there and threw our bats in the garbage can they'd probably have one of them for tomorrow. They would have just finished with (Matthew) Tippie. But our guys competed like crazy. The game just didn't go our way. You walk a fine line in this league. You know, whoever pitches and plays better defense and gets the hit, the timely hit makes the time we play. That's usually the deciding factor, that's the outcome of a game in this league, and that's, that's what it was tonight. They jumped on us early, and we kept getting in position and couldn't get that big hit again, I give their starter credit. I thought he was outstanding tonight. Threw his breaking ball repeatedly. We hit some balls hard, you know, but we just didn't do enough against him early, in the first half of the game, to put ourselves in position to win the game, as far as catching and going ahead, we played from behind all night. But I gave our guys credit. We competed like crazy. We just lost a tough one tonight. We lost a close one and lost a tough one.
UP NEXT
South plays at 1 p.m. Saturday against Texas State for the decision on the series.
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