MIAMI – The FIU baseball program secured its first Conference USA (CUSA) series win of the 2025 season in dominant fashion, defeating Jacksonville State 11-4 on Sunday afternoon at FIU Baseball Stadium.
With the victory, the Panthers improve to 16-9 overall and 2-1 in conference play. Their 16-9 start through 25 games marks the program's best opening stretch since 2014 and the strongest under third-year head coach Rich Witten. Additionally, this is the second consecutive year FIU has opened conference action with a series win, having taken two out of three against Middle Tennessee at home last season.
The Panthers' offense powered the victory, racking up 12 hits and scoring eight combined runs between the third and fifth innings to secure the series-clinching win. Senior Kishon Frett delivered a standout performance at the plate, going 4-for-5 with two home runs and four RBIs.
Jacksonville State (15-9, 2-1 CUSA) briefly held the lead in the second inning on an RBI single, but FIU responded quickly. In the third, following a Kareh Valentin double and an Alex Ulloa walk, Frett crushed a three-run homer at 113 MPH off the bat to give FIU a 3-1 advantage. The Gamecocks answered in the fourth, tying the game at 3-3 on a pair of infield RBI plays.
FIU reclaimed the lead in the bottom half of the inning when Austin Dearing ripped an RBI double into the left-center gap, marking his 15th RBI of the season.
The Panthers' offense continued to surge in the fifth. With Frett and Brylan West on base, designated hitter Andrew Ildefonso blasted a three-run homer to left—his third of the season—extending his on-base streak to 10 games and pushing FIU's lead to 7-3. Samuel Fischer later added an RBI single to cap off the frame.
Jacksonville State tacked on a run in the sixth, but FIU responded in the seventh with a Nelson Rivera Flores sacrifice fly and Fischer's second RBI single of the day to extend the lead to 10-4. Frett sealed the win in the eighth, launching his second home run of the game—his eighth of the season—to left-center for the final 11-4 margin.
Frett led a strong offensive showing with his third career four-hit game and second of the season (previously vs. Merrimack on March 2). His two-homer performance was the second of his career, the first coming against Western Kentucky in the 2024 CUSA Championships.
Ildefonso reached base three times, recording two hits, while Fischer and Valentin each contributed multi-hit performances. Dearing and Rivera Flores also added hits to the stat sheet.
On the mound, David Eckaus made his first start of the season, allowing just one earned run over three innings while striking out one. Kevin Martin pitched the middle two innings, surrendering two earned runs while earning his second win of the season. Jarek Woodward closed out the game in dominant fashion, earning his second save of the season by limiting Jacksonville State to just two hits and one run over four innings, while striking out three.
UP NEXT
FIU heads to Daytona Beach, Fla. for a midweek contest against the Bethune-Cookman Wildcats on Tuesday, March 25 at 6 p.m. It can be streamed on TheCatEYE Network
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