BOX SCORE (PDF) | AUDIO ARCHIVE
MOREHEAD. Ky. – Trailing 8-0 and 10-2 early on Saturday, the Morehead State baseball team chipped away at its deficit to Jacksonville State and eventually completed the comeback with a 15-14 walk-off victory at Allen Field.
The Eagles fell behind 8-0 after two innings and trailed 10-2 heading to the bottom of the fourth. MSU also entered the bottom of the eighth staring at a 14-11 JSU lead but scored three times, including two runs on a groundout and fielding error on the same play, to set up the ninth inning heroics.
MSU improved to 29-22 overall and 15-11 in the Ohio Valley Conference, won its sixth straight regular-season game over the Gamecock program, and clinched the series against JSU for the third straight season. MSU has now won 12 of its last 13 league series at home. JSU fell to 29-21 overall and 17-9 in the conference.
JSU closer Justin Hoyt, who entered in the eighth inning with 10 saves on the year, gave up back-to-back singles to junior rightfielder
Will Schneider and junior third baseman
Alex Stephens. Schneider's hit pulled MSU to within 14-12, scoring freshman shortstop
Reid Leonard.
With the bases loaded, sophomore first baseman
Tyler Niemann grounded out to first, but a throw home to try and gun down junior centerfielder
Ryan Kent was late and careened off the catcher's glove, allowing Schneider to race home and tie the game 14-14.
In the ninth, freshman designated hitter Trevor drew a one-out walk and was pinch run for by fellow freshman
Jake Hammon. Hammon scooted to second on a wild pitch and then motored to third when junior leftfielder
Michael Patrick coaxed a walk and the ball ricocheted off catcher Hayden White's glove. With runners on the corners, Leonard hit a grounder to second. Patrick was out at second but his slide disrupted the throw to first, and Leonard beat it out while Hammon scored the winning run on a walk-off fielder's choice.
The Eagles crept back to within 10-8 with a pair of fourth-inning scores and four tallies in the fifth. Freshman leftfielder
Niko Hulsizer nailed the first of his two home runs in the fifth, and he added his second two-run smash in the seventh as MSU scored three times after JSU had pushed back ahead 14-8 with a four-spot in the sixth.
Junior lefthander
Cable Wright got the final four outs, including three strikeouts, to grab the win and improve to 5-0. His appearance tied him with former Eagle Troy Young (1995-98) for the most career appearances in program history with 84. Hoyt was tagged with the loss to fall to 1-3. The Gamecocks touched up starter
Aaron Leasher, who issued walks to the first four hitters, for 10 runs in 3.1 innings.
Hulsizer was 4-fof-r4 with four RBI and now has seven hits in the first two games of the series. Freshman catcher
Hunter Fain had two doubles and three total hits and now has six hits in the series. Stephens and Kent also had multi-hit performances.
Tyler Gamble was 3-for-3 with three RBI and two walks for the visitors, while Elliott McCummings and Taylor Hawthorne cranked home runs.
MSU will attempt its second consecutive three-game sweep of JSU Sunday when the Eagles honor seven seniors prior to a 1 p.m. ET game time.
