STATESBORO - The Georgia Southern baseball team split a doubleheader against the James Madison Dukes on Friday at J.I. Clements Stadium, taking game one by a score of 10-6 and falling in game two by a final of 4-3.
GAME ONE - GEORGIA SOUTHERN 10-6
The Eagles (26-27, 15-13 SBC) scored three times in the first inning, taking the early lead thanks to a Jarrett Brown fielder's choice that scored Jesse Sherrill, followed by a double-steal, where Brown stole second and Blake Evans stole home, taking a 2-0 lead. Jonathan Jaime's RBI-single to right field scored Brown and gave the Eagles an early 3-0 over the Dukes (29-22, 14-12 SBC). JMU responded in the top of the second inning, but the Eagles would plate three more in the home half, first with an Evans RBI-single scoring Sherrill, followed up with Sam Blancato's fourth homer of the season, a moonshot over the Blue Monster. Gerogia Southern added two more in the bottom of the fourth inning with Evans' two-RBI single, and added one more run in the bottom of the fifth inning via a RBI-single by JP Tighe. JMU got one run back from a sac fly in the top of the sixth inning, but Georgia Southern scored a 10th run in the home half of the six inning with a Noah Ledford sac fly. JMU would score three in the top of the seventh inning, but it was not enough to threaten the Eagles, who opened the series with a 10-6 victory.
Ty Fisher earned his fourth win of the season with 107 pitches in six innings, striking out five Dukes batters.
GAME TWO - JAMES MADISON 4-3
Game two of the doubleheader saw much less scoring than game one, as both side's pitching gave strong performances through the game. JMU (30-22, 15-12 SBC) got on the board first in the top of the first inning from a passed ball, but the following batter grounded out to end the inning with the single unearned run. Georgia Southern's (26-28, 15-14 SBC) Sherrill would tie the game in the bottom of the third inning with an RBI-single that scored Peacher, but the Dukes would respond with two runs in the top of the fourth inning to put some distance between the two teams. The bottom of the fourth inning saw a sac fly by Brown score Blancato and bring the game within one, but JMU's RBI-single in the top of the sixth again stretched the lead to two. The Eagles scored on a Kyler Hultgren RBI-groundout in the bottom of the seventh inning to cut the lead back to one, and threatened with a runner on in the bottom of the ninth inning. The Dukes pitching was able to keep the Eagles threat at bay and sealed the doubleheader split for the teams.
