ATLANTA, Ga.- The University of Tennessee at Martin baseball team exploded at GSU Baseball Complex for a season-best scoring tally, handing Georgia State its first loss of the season in a 14-9 triumph.
UT Martin (3-3) saw five players put on multi-hit performances in TJ Grines (career-high four hits, three runs scored, two RBI, two stolen bases, double away from the cycle), Jalen Fithian (three hits, one double, two RBI), Brody Capps (two hits, three RBI, three runs scored, two walks, home run, one stolen base), Cameron Greene (three hits, one run scored) and Blaze Bell (three hits, three RBI, two runs scored, one walk). Garner Anderson (one run scored, one walk), Jordan Hudson (bases-clearing triple in the fifth inning) and Jonah Katsaboulas (one hit, two runs scored, one RBI, one walk) added more offense for a Skyhawk group that outhit Georgia State by a 17-11 margin.
Jacob Sitton started the game on the mound, going 3.1 innings with two strikeouts. Zach Wager (0.2 innings pitched), Austin Gast (0.1 inning), JP Nunn (0.2 innings pitched, two strikeouts), Mason Shropshire (two innings pitched, three strikeouts) and Kaleb Baskin (two scoreless innings pitched, one hit allowed, three strikeouts) all spent time on the bump out of the bullpen with Gast earning his first victory in a UT Martin uniform.
For the sixth straight game, it was the Skyhawk offense that got to work early by scoring the contest’s first runs – this time coming off a Fithian single in the second frame. Bell would make it 3-0 after a two-run base hit to bring in Katsaboulas and Grines during the third.
Sitton worked through the first three innings by only allowing one hit and two base runners to keep the lead in the Skyhawks favor. The Panthers (5-1) got on the board in the home half of the fourth inning but still trailed by one after Wager emerged from the bullpen and retired the final out of the frame.
UT Martin got those runs back and more during the top part of the fifth. A bases loaded walk drawn by Bell plated Capps and with the bases still juiced, Hudson cleared the pond on a triple to up the Skyhawk advantage to 7-2. The offense wouldn’t yield yet as Fithian laced a double to left center and Grines belted his first long ball of the year to plate two more runs. Katsaboulas put the cherry on top of the fifth from an RBI single as UT Martin batted around in the inning to make the score 11-2 once the dust settled.
Georgia State mixed things up in the bottom half of the inning with three runs off four hits to cut its deficit to six. However, Nunn struck out the final two batters to limit the damage for the Panthers.
Two runners got in scoring position for Georgia State in the sixth but Shropshire stranded both, recording three straight outs from back-to-back punchouts and a flyout to close the inning.
Once again, the Skyhawks answered – this time from a three-run rocket over the wall in left center off the bat of Capps. The Panthers scored two runs in the bottom of the seventh but wouldn’t get closer than five runs the rest of the way as Baskin silenced the Georgia State bats over the final two frames to cap off the victory.
UT Martin heads into the new week with a Tuesday, Feb. 25 clash against Murray State. First pitch from Johnny Reagan Field is set for 2 p.m.
