LITTLE ROCK – Little Rock held off South Alabama Sunday at
Gary Hogan Field, taking a 7-4 victory over the Jaguars to claim its sixth Sun Belt Conference series victory of the season and eighth overall.
The Trojans regain the top spot in the Sun Belt West following a Louisiana loss to Coastal Carolina. Little Rock is now 14-9 in conference play and notch its 25th win on the year. South Alabama falls to 14-9 in the Sun Belt and 26-19 overall.
The key moment of the game came in the bottom of the seventh with the score tied 3-3.
Chase Coker sat on third with two outs with
Marcus Ragan right behind him on second. In a gutsy move, Coker took off to steal home and slid across the plate to give the Trojans the lead. The ball was in the dirt and got past the Jaguar catcher, allowing Ragan to score as well, giving the Trojans the lead for good at 5-3.
"The steal of home by Coker epitomizes how we try to play the game in our program," head coach
Chris Curry said. "We want to play the game with aggression and no fear. Chase asked for the green light from coach Sanders and he gave to him and Chase took off. The heads up play was for Coach Sanders to score Marcus from second who took off as soon as Coker did."
Coker led all hitters going 2-for-2 at the plate with two runs, an RBI, a walk and a solo home run. Ragan tallied two RBIs on the day and went 1-for-4 at the plate and scoring once himself.
Little Rock opened up the scoring in the third inning with a Coker solo home run with one out which was his fourth long ball of the year.
The Trojan lead rose to three in the fifth inning after Perez and Benavidez were on base from a walk and getting hit by the pitch.
Christian Reyes than successfully advanced both runners with a bunt back to the pitcher.
Coker walked to load the bases for Ragan who then lined a single through the left side to score Benavidez and Perez.
Starter
Cole Townsend was grooving in his first start back since the UT Arlington series. He threw five and two thirds innings giving up only two hits, striking out five.
South Alabama cut the lead to one in the sixth when Townsend allowed a walk with two outs before giving up a home run to Swaggerty. Before the walk and home run, he had retired 15 straight batters to holding them to just one hit through five innings.
Donavin Buck relieved Townsend and gained the win on the day pushing him to 6-0 on the year. He ended the day throwing an inning and a third striking out one and gave up two hits including a solo home run.
The Jags tied it up in the seventh when Buck gave up a leadoff home run to Carter Perkins.
Justin Garcia entered the game in the top of the eighth to go for the two inning save. South Alabama cut the lead back to one though after Garcia gave up a two-out solo shot to Travis Swaggerty for his second of the game.
In an attempt to give Garcia some breathing room in the ninth,
Matt Merino began the bottom of the eight with a double left field.
Kale Emshoff moved Merino to third with a fly out to center and then
Riley Pittman struck out making it two outs.
Nick Perez stepped into the box and battled to a full count before delivering a towering home run barely eclipsing over the right field wall and putting the Trojans up 7-4. Perez's home run was his fourth on the year and gave him two RBIs on the day while going 1-for-3 and scoring twice.
Garcia then retired South Alabama in the top of the ninth with two groundouts and fly out to end the game, moving to double digits in the save column with his 10th on the year.
"This weekend is snapshot of the heart and grit this team has played with all season," Curry said. "It's a fun ride right now."
Little Rock will close out its four-game home stand at
Gary Hogan Field on Tuesday as it hosts the Golden Lions of UAPB at 6:00 p.m.
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