JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Jacksonville University baseball led wire-to-wire to win 10-5 over North Alabama on Sunday at John Sessions Stadium.
AJ Jones pitched 7.1 innings to earn his team-high fifth win of the season as the Dolphins (21-15, 7-5) snapped a season-high four game losing streak.
"AJ went out and put a bunch of zeroes up early, and offensively we got ahead of them," said Head Coach
Chris Hayes. "Credit to North Alabama, they made it difficult on us until we extended the game late."
Jacksonville scored first for the first time in the series.
Ruben Someillan drew a leadoff walk and
Scott Dubrule singled to bring up
Angel Camacho, who doubled to left to drive in the first run of the game.
Jacob Southern then poked a two-RBI single into the outfield and
John Cassala singled to chase the North Alabama starter after five batters without recording an out. A sacrifice bunt and RBI groundout made it 4-0 Jacksonville after one.
JU tacked on two more in the fourth. Someillan was hit by a pitch to start the frame, and Dubrule collected another hit before Camacho walked to load the bases. Southern collected his third RBI of the day with a sacrifice fly. An attempted hit and run nearly went awry when Cassala struck out and Camacho was only halfway to second on the throw from the Lions catcher, but it bounced away into centerfield allowing Dubrule to walk home and extended JU's lead to 6-0.
North Alabama started to chip away in the fifth with a manufactured run. A leadoff single stole second, advanced to third on a wild pitch and scored on a groundout to short, which made it 6-1.
Two more in the sixth for UNA cut the JU lead in half. A leadoff double was followed by a hit batsman and an RBI single to right. A groundout to second plated the second run of the inning, but Jones picked up a strikeout and a groundout immediately after that to limit the Lions' rally.
"All season we haven't been able to limit the big inning and that's just cost us," said Jones. "Really working on making your pitches, getting that ground ball, just limiting everything, that was really good."
Jones worked a 1-2-3 seventh, including his sixth strikeout of the day and got the first out of the eighth before giving way to
Nick Love.
Jacksonville kept the pressure on with a two-out rally in the seventh.
Cory Heffron drew a walk after the first two Dolphins went down in the inning, and
Kyle Richardson also reached on a free pass, setting up Someillan's RBI single to right and Dubrule's RBI double to left, the latter of which was the fifth hit of the day for Dubrule, tying a career-best.
The Dolphins got two more in the eighth when Cassala walked ahead of
Reagan Wright, who crushed a two-run homer to left, his first home run of his career to extend the lead out to seven, 10-3.
The Lions managed two runs in the ninth, but any thoughts of another crazy comeback were quelled when Love ended the day with a strikeout looking.
Jacksonville heads on the road next week, starting with Tuesday night contest in Gainesville vs. Florida.
