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<\/a>Jenna Siddiqui The Jackson State University baseball team ended with the overall best record in a tournament against the University of Texas Pan America(UTPA) and the University of Tennessee Martin.<\/p>\n In the opening game of the season on Feb. 13, the Tigers defeated UTPA with a close score of 6-5. Rene Colon picked up the win by pitching seven innings, allowing eight hits and giving up three runs. Alexander Juday came in for the save allowing two hits and giving up two runs.<\/p>\n The Tigers took the lead 2-1 in the second inning after Dylan Parker scored off of Jovany Felipe\u2019s fielder\u2019s choice to short stop.<\/p>\n The Tigers then took a 4-1 lead in the fourth inning when Tilur Smith scored off of an error by UTPA\u2019s second baseman.\u00a0 Later that inning, Jesus Santana scored off of Felipe\u2019s base hit to left field.\u00a0 Thomas scored off of Smith\u2019s single to center field, giving the Tigers their first win of the season.<\/p>\n Melvin Rodriguez, a senior second baseman from Manati, Puerto Rico, had two RBI\u2019s in this game alone.<\/p>\n \u201cI personally think I did really decent this tournament.\u00a0 My strengths this tournament were my offense and supporting of my team,\u201d said Rodriguez.<\/p>\n On Feb. 14, the Tigers played UT Martin and continued their winning streak with a final score of 20-10.<\/p>\n Vincent Anthonia got the win by pitching six innings allowing ten hits giving up eight runs where one of them was unearned.<\/p>\n In the second inning, with two outs, JSU scored an astounding nine runs leading UTM 9-1.<\/p>\n Freshman Jonah Hargroves scored the Tigers\u2019 first run on a bases loaded walk.\u00a0 Smith cleared the bases with a triple.\u00a0 Rodriguez knocked Smith in with a base hit up the middle.\u00a0 Later that inning, while the bases were loaded, Felipe hit a grand slam adding four more runs to the Tigers\u2019 lead.<\/p>\n Felipe, a senior catcher from Miami, Fla., said, \u201cI feel very good offensively swinging the bat, but my defense needs to be top notch for the team being at my position.\u201d<\/p>\n Although UTM tried to make comeback by scoring nine more runs, the Tigers scored ten runs in the last five innings alone, improving their overall record 2-0.<\/p>\n \u201cThe team did an excellent job of swinging the bats this weekend.\u00a0 We\u2019ve shown that we can put up the numbers to be a top quality run scoring team,\u201d said Felipe.<\/p>\n The Tigers faced Texas Pan America yet again Saturday night after four long hours of play earlier that day.<\/p>\n Jamal Wilson got the loss by pitching seven innings allowing eight hits and giving up five runs where two were unearned.\u00a0 Jordan Bolden came in relief and pitched two innings.<\/p>\n JSU fell to UTPA 0-7, giving them their first loss of the season.<\/p>\n Sam Campbell, a sophomore first baseman from Yazoo City, Miss., said, \u201cWe were kind of flat and when things went wrong, we got down on ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n On Sunday, the Tigers closed out the tournament with a victory against UTM.<\/p>\n In the first inning, Thomas scored off of an error made by UTM\u2019s shortstop giving JSU a 1-0 lead.<\/p>\n In the second inning, Jacobs doubled to center field, driving in Mark Watson and Gary Thomas.\u00a0 Rodriguez singled to second base bringing Jacobs home.<\/p>\n Jacobs, a junior third baseman from Toronto, Canada said, \u201cWe have a long season ahead of us and it\u2019s going to take all of us to come together.\u00a0 Individually, if success comes, so be it, but more importantly, I\u2019m doing whatever it takes to help the team win.\u201d<\/p>\n In the fourth inning, Smith hit a two run home run. The next inning, Rodriguez singled to center field adding an insurance run to defeat UTM 9-4.<\/p>\n \u201cOverall I think we did pretty good but we need to work on our defense,\u201d said Rodriguez.<\/p>\n The Tigers closed out the tournament with a 3-1 record, giving them a good start to their 2015 season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Jenna Siddiqui MC301 Contributor\/Staff The Jackson State University baseball team ended with the overall best record in a tournament against the University of Texas Pan…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"editor_plus_post_options":"{}","editor_plus_copied_stylings":"{}","_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5186"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5186\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n<\/strong>MC301 Contributor\/Staff<\/strong><\/p>\n