JONESBORO, Ark. - Starter Thomas Higgins and reliever Mitchell Gross shut down the Arkansas State offense to collect a shutout victory and a Sun Belt series victory on Friday night in seven innings, 11-0.

For the first third of the game, Higgins and Red Wolves (15-14, 2-6 SBC) starter Jelle van der Lelie were locked in a pitcher's duel, with the Eagles having the slight advantage of two hits in the third inning. Georgia Southern (14-12, 5-3 SBC) broke through in the top of the fourth inning when Jarrett Brown opened the scoring with a 354 ft home run down the left field line, putting the Eagles up to an early 1-0 lead.

Southern would add a pair in the top of the fifth when Sam Blancato's RBI-single bounced off of the third baseman's out-stretched glove, bringing home Cade Parker, who signifies Blancato's 100th-career RBI. Jarrett Brown followed up with his second RBI of the night on a groundout that scored Luke Odden.

The game remained quiet until the top of the seventh inning, where the Eagles put up eight against the Red Wolves, starting with a Brown two-RBI single to score Odden and Josh Tate. JD Kaiser followed that with an RBI-single to bring home Brown, then Sean White skipped an RBI-double down the left field line to score Kent Schmidt, bringing Kaiser to third. Jonathan Jaime saw a high-fly ball drop in front of the Arkansas State center fielder who tried to make a diving catch, scoring Kaiser and stretching the lead to 8-0. To wrap up the scoring, Cade Parker launched a homer to down the left field line to put the Eagles up 11-0, needing just three outs to end the game early.

Gross, who came in to relieve Higgins when the game was 3-0 in the sixth, was able to produce two strikeouts in the bottom of the seventh inning to call the game, giving the Eagles its third run-rule victory in the previous six games. Gross earned his first save of the season with his two innings of relief as the margin was only three runs when he came in.

Higgins earned his third victory of the year with five innings of one hit ball, where he sat down three and only walked one. He brought his season ERA down to 2.54, the current lowest among the Eagles.

Every Eagles starter recorded at least one hit, with Tate, Brown, Kaiser, White, Parker, and Odden recording two hits each. Brown ended the night with four RBI while Parker ended the night with three RBI.

UP NEXT
The Eagles eye its first conference sweep of the season in Saturday's series finale in Jonesboro. First pitch is set for 11:30 am ET from Tomlinson Stadium.