CONWAY, S.C. - South Alabama (19-13, 6-6 SBC) came up short in Saturday's series finale against No. 14 Coastal Carolina (23-8, 11-1 SBC) in a hard-fought, back-and-forth contest by an 8-7 final score.


PRIMARY THREADS

• Stewart Puckett followed a four-hit Friday night performance not skipping a beat out of the gate and doubled in the first inning to put two in scoring position. Blake Guerin would get a job done and plate Brennon Wright with a sacrifice fly to put the Jags on the board first.
• The Chants had second and third with one-away in the second inning, when Ethan Melton came down with a fly ball in center field and threw a strike to the plate to hose the runner trying to score and got the Jags out of the inning untouched.
• Coastal bats answered with four runs in the home half of the third, though two runs were earned. A solo shot would tack on one more in the fourth inning to increase its lead to four.
• The Jags grabbed one back in the top of the fifth when Mike Young singled with two-away to plate Duncan Mathews who was in scoring position. The Chants matched the run in the bottom half on an RBI single.
• Five Jaguar runs scored in the sixth on four hits and one costly throwing error from the Chants that plated two on the play. Brennon Wright and Paxton Bigby both knocked in a run on singles in the inning.
• Zach Stevens entered for Max Miller in the fifth and shut down the Chants in a season-long 3.2 innings pitched with five strikeouts and did not allow a run.
• Coastal plated two runs in the bottom of the ninth to walk-off the Jaguars in a back-and-forth series finale, 8-7.

KEY STATS

• Stewart Puckett doubled in the first inning and totaled a 6-12 effort at the plate in the series with four RBI. Puckett pushed his hit streak to seven games on Saturday.
• Mike Young turned in his second consecutive multi-hit game, with two hits and an RBI in the setback.
• Ethan Melton threw out a runner at the plate for an F82 double play in the second inning, and collected his sixteenth outfield assist of his career.
• Nathan Wood tagged two hits for his third multi-hit game of the season.
• Zach Stevens went a scoreless season-high 3.2 innings pitched.

QUOTABLE
HEAD COACH MARK CALVI
"It sucks. But when you play high level competition you walk a fine line and sometimes this happens. We played Coastal tooth-and-nail. They pumped us, we pumped them, and got walked-off. We want to get where they've been and our team showed that, standing toe-to-toe trading blows. They touched the plate one more time at the end. I thought our guys competed like crazy.

I love this group. They go hard, they're fun, they're competitive. My heart absolutely breaks for them. But, if you're not willing to lay it out there and be in front of 5,000-10,000 people and just stay inside and play video games, you'll never feel what it's like to really compete and win and feel what it's like to lose. Baseball is full of great life lessons and it doesn't stop coming at you.

It just teaches you to pull it together like our guys do, and bounce back when you get knocked to the mat, and then throw punches like our guys did this weekend. My heart breaks for them. I loved everything about today, except for the outcome. If you're willing to put the work in and win, then you got to be willing to get your heart broken. We'll bounce back and be a better team because of it."


ON DECK
The Jags continue the road stretch on Wednesday, April 8 with a midweek contest at Alabama State. First pitch is slated for 6:00 p.m. (CT).


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