JACKSONVILLE, Ala. – Playing in his home state, Morehead State freshman second baseman Braxton Morris ripped a two-run triple in the top of the 10th inning Friday as the Eagle baseball team tied the school record for wins with a 4-2 triumph at Jacksonville State.
Morris was one of several key players in the MSU victory as the Eagles improved to 31-18 overall. This squad tied the 1993 team for most victories. Morehead State also tied the school record for Ohio Valley Conference wins, set last season, with 16 and equaled the school single-season standard for saves with 16. The Gamecocks fell to 26-23 overall and 13-12 in the conference. Morehead State, at 16-9 in the OVC, remained in a tie with SIU Edwardsville for second place. The Eagles own a potential tiebreaker with SIUE.
Sophomore pitcher Luke Humphreys tossed eight innings and struck out six in a no-decision. Junior righty Tyler Keele escaped a situation in the bottom of the ninth with two runners on and no outs to collect his second win of the year, and junior right-hander Aaron Goe picked up his second save of the season, striking out the side in the bottom of the 10th.
“We certainly had a lot of opportunities to score more runs, but I can’t say enough about our pitching,” Head Coach Mike McGuire said. “That may have been Luke’s best outing ever. He minimized the damage in the first inning and then really was never in trouble the rest of the night. For Tyler to get out of that jam in the ninth with two runners on, and the 3-4-5 batters coming up, was huge. You have to give their pitchers some credit too. They made some big pitches in crucial situations too, and I think some of our guys got out of their normal approaches a bit.”
Morehead State scored a pair in the second inning following a score by the hosts in the first. Senior leftfielder Nick Newell’s OVC-best 25th double plated senior catcher Chris Robinson and senior shortstop Robby Spencer.
The Gamecocks tied the contest in the fourth on Ryan Sebra’s solo homer, but Humphreys retired the final 13 batters he faced from the fourth through eighth frames.
Newell led off the 10th with a single, his third hit of the night. Junior third baseman Alex Stephens, seeing his first at-bat since April 4 due to an injury, followed with a single. Senior designated hitter Clayton Meyer then executed a sacrifice bunt to push the runners into scoring position. Morris, who hails from Albertville, Ala., took a 3-1 pitch off JSU closer Travis Stout and crushed it to the wall in right center field. Stout fell to 0-3.
Seven pitchers on both teams combined to strike out 22 batters. Morehead State finished with 12 hits, the team’s 31st outing with double digits in 2015. JSU had just five hits.
Senior first baseman Kane Sweeney had a pair of hits to extend his reached-base streak to 26 contests, while sophomore center fielder Ryan Kent upped his reached-base streak to a team-best 28 games. The Eagles stranded 14 runners on base.
JSU center fielder Gavin Golsan totaled three of the five hits for his club. The OVC stolen base leader was also cut down by Robinson for just his third time caught this season in 36 chances.
The teams play game two of the series at 2 p.m. ET on Saturday at Rudy Abbott Field.
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