East Central Alabama News

The Jacksonville State baseball team will tune up for 10 weeks of ASUN Conference action this weekend, hosting South Alabama in the final non-conference weekend series on Rudy Abbott Field at Jim Case Stadium.

The in-state series will get started with Friday's opener at 6 p.m., followed by a Saturday evening contest at 6 p.m. The weekend concludes on Sunday at 1 p.m. Tickets for the weekend set are available online at JSUGamecockSports.com. All Jax State students and fans 18 years old and younger are admitted free. All three games will be streamed on ESPN+ and carried on the Gamecock Sports Network.

The Gamecocks (4-9), amid a 12-game homestand, will look to bounce-back from a tough midweek with setbacks to Alabama State on Tuesday and to 11th-ranked Auburn on Wednesday. The Jaguars enter the weekend at 6-7 on the season after picking up a midweek win over New Orleans on Tuesday night in Mobile.
 
Jax State and USA will be meeting for the third consecutive season as two in-state programs scheduled a home-and-home series for the 2021 and 2022 seasons. This season starts a new home-and-home series with the Gamecocks tentatively scheduled to make the trip to Mobile next season. The Gamecocks and Jaguars split the 2021 and 2022 series with the visitors claiming the series. In 2021, the Gamecocks claimed a pair of games at Stanky Field before the Jaguars swept all three games last season in Jacksonville. Prior to the weekend series format over the last two seasons between the two clubs, JSU and USA played a two-game midweek set dating back to 1996. The Jaguars lead the all-time series 19-7.

Senior outfielder T.J. Reeves enters the weekend near the top of the ASUN Conference in total hits with 23 through 13 games and enters the USA series ranked 11th in NCAA Division I Baseball for hits. Reeves has a hit in 10-of-the-13 games this season, including multiple hits in nine games. He has turned in five games with two hits, a pair of three-hit games and established a career high in hits for a game with four vs. Bradley on March 5.

Junior Mason Maners has put together a string of 25 straight games of reaching base, which dates back to the last 12 games of the 2023 season. In the 13 games this season, he has reached base 30 total times. Over the last 25 games, Maners has hit in 21-of-the-25 games and has two or more hits in 11 of the 23 games dating back to the Eastern Kentucky series last season. Maners' streak ranks seventh in the country behind Brando Comia of Illinois' 50-game on-base streak spanning the last two seasons.

Jax State will stick with the pitching rotation from the previous three weekends by sending sophomore AJ Causey to the mound on Friday night, followed by sophomore Tanner Jones making the Saturday start. Freshman Eli Zielinski has put together back-to-back stellar performances in wins against Southern Illinois and Bradley. In the two starts at home, the Daphne, Alabama lefty has turned in 11.0 innings of work, allowed seven hits and three runs. Zielinski has tallied 16 strikeouts, including nine strikeouts last Sunday against the Braves of Bradley.

Causey will be looking for a repeat of last weekend on the mound and offensively. In his start last Friday, the Harvest, Alabama native turned in a 10-strikeout performance in seven complete innings. Offensively in the two games in the lineup, Causey hit. .556 (5-9) and four RBI. He recorded a 4-for-4 day at the plate last Sunday versus BU. 

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