The Southern baseball team had a chance for a sweep but fell too far behind in Saturday game as Alcorn State scored its first Southwestern Athletic Conference win last weekend.
Still, coach Chris Crenshaw isn’t pouting about the missed opportunity.
The Jaguars (9-17, 5-4 Western Division) move on to play a nonconference game against South Alabama at 6 p.m. Tuesday in Mobile, Alabama. Then they’ll head to Prairie View for an Easter weekend series that begins Thursday. Prairie View is 7-2 in division play, one game behind Grambling.
The good news was that the Jaguars, who are tied for third with Texas Southern, didn’t let Saturday’s loss cost them the series. They came back Sunday to win 6-1 behind the pitching of Nick Wilson and Drew Lasseigne.
Wilson went seven innings, allowing six hits and two runs with no walks and two strikeouts. Lasseigne allowed one hit in two relief innings and struck out two to get the save.
“The goal is to win the series every weekend, and we did that,” Crenshaw said. “We’re still on track for some of our goals this year.”
Jah’li Hendricks came up with a big two-run single in the seventh inning of Sunday’s game for a bigger cushion. Southern got two runs in the first on a sacrifice fly by Gustavo Nava Sanchez and a run-scoring single by Khyle Radcliffe.
The Jaguars opened the series with a dominant 14-4 mercy-rule victory after eight innings. Jaylen Armstrong ended it with a three-run homer to left field. Burgos had three hits and three RBIs, and Hendricks two hits with three RBIs. Jalon Long went six innings and allowed four runs but the Jaguars had already built a big lead. Lasseigne came in and pitched two scoreless innings with two strikeouts to close it out.
But the Jaguar pitching went collapsed in the Saturday game. Antoine Harris, Jerry Burkett and Jaden Brasseuax combined to allow 15 runs, 16 hits, nine walks and a hit batter. Southern fell behind 9-0 before Armstrong’s two-run single in the sixth gave them hope.
Alcorn, which was 0-7 in SWAC play entering the game, came back with five in the eighth — enough to withstand a seven-run ninth inning for Southern, which ended with the tying run at the plate.
“There was good and bad,” Crenshaw said. “Jalon Long was pretty good, and Nick Wilson was really good on Sunday, but I have to figure out a Saturday starter. We swung it, played some good defense and we showed some fight trying to come back on Saturday, but we dug ourselves into a hole too early.”
For the weekend, Burgos had six hits in 12 at-bats with six RBIs and his third home run. Armstrong had six hits in 14 at-bats with six runs scored and five RBIs. Hendricks knocked in six runs with five hits, and Radcliffe scored four times while going 5 for 11.
The Jaguars will bus to South Alabama on Tuesday, return home after the game, practice and then depart Wednesday for Prairie View.
Getting in all three games could prove to be difficult. According to the National Weather Service, the forecast for Prairie View, Texas, calls for a 90% chance of thunderstorms Thursday afternoon, Thursday night and Friday afternoon.
Daren Smith will start Tuesday’s game for Southern and go “three or four innings” before Crenshaw tries out some other arms.
South Alabama (12-16) is led by outfielder Will Turner, who is batting .369 with seven homers and 34 RBIs.
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