BIRMINGHAM, Ala.—The Samford baseball team dropped a 9-6 decision to Jacksonville State Wednesday evening at Joe Lee Griffin Field.
 
"I thought for six innings we swung the bats extremely well," Samford head coach Casey Dunn said. "But seven strikeouts over the last three innings is just not acceptable. We have to get better as the game goes along. I was disappointed in the fact that we didn't finish very well tonight."
 
For Samford in the loss, Richard Greene went 3-for-4 with a double and four RBI. Austin Edens went 3-for-4 with an RBI, while Alex Lee went 2-for-4 for the Bulldogs.
 
Jake Greer (0-1) pitched 1.1 innings, giving up two runs on no hits to take the loss on the mound for Samford. Wyatt Burns, Jesse Travis, Mikel Belcher, Devan Traglia, Caleb Maggio and Cole Limbaugh also pitched in the game for Samford.
 
Jacksonville State was led by Paul Angel, going 3-for-4 at the plate. Hayden White hit a two-run home run, going 1-for-3 for the Gamecocks. Grant Chandler (2-0) earned the win for JSU, tossing 2.0 innings in relief, giving up two runs on four hits. Travis Stout picked up his sixth save of the season, pitching the final inning for the Gamecocks.
 
JSU jumped on top early with four runs in the top of the second inning. Paschal Petrongolo drove in two runs in the inning. Angel scored a run on a wild pitch, and Clayton Daniel scored when Petrongolo was picked off for a 4-0 Gamecock lead.
 
Samford plated its first two runs of the game in the bottom of the second inning. Greene and Danny Rodriguez drove in a run each for the Bulldogs to cut the JSU lead to 4-2.
 
Jacksonville State added four more runs in the top of the fourth inning to push its lead to 8-2. White hit a two-run home run, and Tyler Gamble and Ryan Sebra drove in a run each in the inning for a six-run JSU lead.
 
The Bulldogs plated two more runs in the bottom of the fourth inning to make the score 8-4. Edens and Greene drove in a run each in the inning to bring Samford to within four runs of JSU.
 
Jacksonville State plated its final run of the game in the top of the sixth inning. Josh Bobo walked with the bases loaded to drive in Sebra for a 9-4 Gamecock lead.
 
Samford scored the game's final two runs in the bottom of the sixth inning. Greene singled to right field to drive in Rodriguez and Edens to make the final score 9-6.
 
With the loss, Samford falls to 9-13 on the season. Jacksonville State improves to 14-8 with the win.
 
Samford will travel to Lexington, Va., this weekend for a Southern Conference series at Virginia Military Institute (VMI). Samford and VMI are scheduled to play Friday at 5 p.m. (CST), Saturday at 3 p.m. and Sunday at 11 a.m. All three games can be heard locally on WVSU-FM 91.1, or worldwide on the internet at www.samford.edu/wvsu.