Compared to the pace of Tuesday's game, this one was a veritable sprint. Alabama lefthander Miers Quigley and four Jacksonville State pitchers got through the Tide's 5-0 victory at Rudy Abbott Field Wednesday in 2 hours, 8 minutes.
That's 68 minutes - and 103 pitches - faster than the walk- and error-fest the teams muddled through Tuesday.
"I really didn't know what to expect," Tide coach Jim Wells said. "You always hope for the best, but you do always feel like it's going to be tougher when you play a team on the road, certainly after you played them the night before.
"But both (pitchers) threw strikes and that's always nice to see . Just a clean game after coming off last night. It's nice to bounce back and have a fairly well-played game."
Quigley, a 6-foot-5 junior who had never gone longer than seven innings this year, went the distance for his first career complete game and the Tide's first complete-game shutout in more than two years. He delivered it seven days after a dreadful outing against New Orleans, in which he gave up eight earned runs in 2 1/3 innings.
Quigley allowed only four singles and struck out eight. His only rough patch came in the eighth when the Gamecocks (9-14) loaded the bases on two infield errors and a hit batsman to add maybe 10 extra minutes to the time of the game.
"They wanted a little more tempo tonight," Quigley said. "The players stay in the game a lot more if you work faster. The defense works better for you, the team hits. You get in, get out and get on the bus."
If that were the case, the Tide (13-11) could've started loading the bus after the third inning.
That's when it reached JSU starter John David Smelser, a Tuscaloosa native, for three runs. Four of the Tide's five hitters in the inning got singles, with virtually every one going to the opposite field.
The Tide added another run in the fourth and Matt Bentley hit a solo home run - his fifth - in the eighth.
The third inning aside, the JSU pitchers looked sharp. After giving up 11 walks in Tuesday's 12-6 marathon, they had only two in this game.
"I thought there were some positives for tonight, and the way we pitched was one of them," JSU coach Jim Case said. "The great thing about tonight was we challenged the strike zone and made them earn it - and they did.
"I thought John David threw really good; they just did a nice job against him. Almost every hit they got was opposite field. They did a great job of staying on balls, going the other way. They showed themselves to be a veteran-type hitting team."
Next: JSU at Austin Peay, Saturday (DH), 1 p.m.
Alabama vs. Ole Miss, Friday, 6:30 p.m., 95.5 FM
