Smartt’s 10th-Inning Homer Pushes Troy Past South Alabama

Thursday, May 18

Mobile, Ala.

6:30 PM

Troy University

31-22, 16-12

South Alabama

34-19, 20-8

Troy

South Alabama

Smartt’s 10th-Inning Homer Pushes Troy Past South Alabama

5/18/2017 10:42:00 PM | Baseball

Box Score Box Score

By: Jace Sanders

Box Score

MOBILE, Alabama – Chase Smartt homered in the top of the 10^th inning to lift Troy past South Alabama, 5-4, in game one of the Sun Belt set Thursday night at Stanky Field.

Tied 4-4 with two outs in the 10^th, Smartt jumped on a first pitch fastball and deposited it into the trees in left-center.

Troy (31-22, 16-12) jumped out to a four-run lead in the sixth inning behind the bat of Brody Binder – who finished the game 3-for-4 with a career-high four RBIs. Binder's big blow came in the fourth when he sent an 0-2 pitch deep to left-center for a two-run blast to put the Trojans up 3-0.

Trailing 4-0 in the eighth, the Jaguars (34-20, 20-8) mounted a rally that tied the game after a string of base hits and a close call on a ball that rolled out of play.

Corey Childress (4-3) came in and shut the door on the rally on his way to winning his fourth game of the season – not allowing a run on one hit and fanning one in 1.1 innings of work.

Marc Skinner earned his 12^th save of the season to tie Troy's single-season save record after working a perfect 10^th inning that included two strikeouts.

Mason Rogers went 3-for-5 and Brandon Lockridge went 2-for-4 to help spark the Trojan bats to a 13-hit night – Rogers has had multiple hits in seven of the last nine games.

In limited work, Andrew Crane pitched three shutout innings to extend his consecutive scoreless inning streak to 39.2 IP. He holds the Troy and Sun Belt records for the streak – he's 7.1 innings from the most in NCAA since the transition to aluminum bats.

Hunter Stokes led South Alabama driving in two runs on his way to a 2-for-5 game at the plate.

QUOTABLE
"It was a great game one win," Troy head coach Mark Smartt said. "We executed when we needed to in order to win the game. Really proud of Brody; he had a big night at the plate. Chase came in clutch with the big homer in the 10^th."

"Our guys were getting on base," Brody Binder said about his four-RBI performance. "It does something for your confidence to get an RBI and then everything falls into place. He left a two-strike pitch up and I had to shorten my swing but it got out of here."

"I trust my teammates to do their job," catcher Chase Smartt said about the go-ahead homer. "I wasn't seeing the ball well at the beginning. I told myself the next fastball I saw I'd hit it hard and it left the ballpark."

SOUND "SMARTT" WITH YOUR FRIENDS
• Andrew Crane added three more innings to his now 39.2 consecutive scoreless innings streak – he currently holds the Troy and Sun Belt record and is 7.1 innings from the most in the NCAA since wooden bats stopped being used.

• Brandon Lockridge picked up his 80^th and 81^st hits of the season with a double in the third and a single in the fifth - five shy of cracking the top 10 in school history for most hits in a single season. He also extended his hitting streak to 11 consecutive games.

• Lockridge's multi-hit performance was his 28^th of the season and 43^rd in his career.

• Mason Rogers doubled in the second, singled in the fourth and doubled again in the sixth to post multiple hits for the seventh time in the last nine games for the Trojans.

• Brody Binder's two-run home run in the fourth was his first round-tripper since February 24 – game one of the New Orleans series – and his four RBIs are a career high.

• Chase Smartt's 10^th-inning homer was his fourth of the season and second in the last four games.

• Marc Skinner earned his 12^th save of the season and 20^th career save in his 109^th career appearance for Troy – he now owns a share of Troy's records in all three of those statistical categories.

• With the victory, Troy has defeated every team that it has faced from the state of Alabama this season – Alabama, Alabama State, Auburn, Jacksonville State, Samford, South Alabama and UAB.

WHAT'S UP NEXT?
The Trojans will go for the series victory over the Jags on Friday with first pitch set for 6:30 p.m. Junior righty Daren Osby (5-4, 4.66) will get the call to the mound to start for Troy.