BOX SCORE: G1 | G2
 
PENSACOLA, Fla. – The No. 17-ranked UWF baseball team extended its win streak to five after a doubleheader sweep of Mississippi College on Saturday. The Argos now start its Gulf South Conference schedule 2-0 and own a 6-4 record on the season.
 
Game 1: UWF 7, MC 3
 
The Argonauts used a four-run fourth inning and solid pitching from JT Granat and Jared Gonzalez to take the front end of Saturday's doubleheader 7-3.
 
"The first game we swung the bats really well," said head coach Mike Jeffcoat. "But we left 11 on base and we had a lot more scoring opportunities. We did not execute the bunt at times we needed to but we still had some big hits."
 
With a 2-0 lead heading into the fourth inning, Mississippi College was able to knot the game at 2-2 via a Chance Witten home run over the right field fence. In the ensuing frame, the Argonauts posted a four-run, four-hit showing largely in thanks to a Ladeavon Matthews 3-RBI double to give the Argos a 6-2 advantage.
 
MC recorded a sac fly in the fifth, cutting UWF's lead to 6-3, but Trevor Payne extended his hitting streak to a team-best seven games and scored a hustling Chase Kiefer on an infield single.
 
Granat matched his career-high with eight strikeouts and allowed two earned runs in six innings of work. With a Choctaw runner on second, Granat ended the potential threat with back-to-back strikeouts to finish his outing.
 
Gonzalez recorded his first save of the inning, tossing three innings of hitless ball and allowing just one Choctaw batter to reach base. Gonzalez now leads all UWF pitchers in appearances with 6, while owning a minuscule 0.96 ERA.
 
Gonzalez finished his outing retiring eight consecutive batters, and the one batter he did allow to reach base was later the part of a highlight reel double play where Matthews fired an Ichiro-esque strike from right field to third base to throw out a tagging up Kyle Smith to end the seventh inning.
 
The Argos ended the ballgame flashing more leather, with Kiefer making a full-extension grab in centerfield diving to his right.
 
Both Kiefer and Matthews also shined at the plate, with Kiefer going 2-for-5 with a run scored and Matthews posting a 2-for-4 effort at the plate with a game-high four RBI. Nic Strasser and Brandon Harmon each added two hits apiece, while Robert Lopez went 3-for-5 with a double and two runs scored.
 
Game 2: UWF 6, MC 2
 
Strong defense was at a premium for both teams in the second half of Saturday's doubleheader with nine total errors, but the Argonauts made the most of Mississippi College's mistakes to pull off a 6-2 victory.
 
"In the second game, I thought Jackson Smith did well. I didn't like the errors in the second game, we made some mistakes there and we have to clean that up. J.A. Harville and Jarrod Petree came in behind him and did a nice job holding the lead and we scrapped and got some runs with a little help from them," said Jeffcoat.
 
The beginning of the contest started similarly as the first game, with UWF taking a 2-0 lead before Mississippi College responded with a pair of runs in the fourth. The Argonauts gained a lead it would not relinquish in the fourth with Ladeavon Matthews scoring on an error and an RBI single by Justin Ambrosino, who posted his GSC-leading 17^th RBI of the season.
 
Insurance runs crossed the plate in the sixth, with Tanner May scoring on an error by Choctaw backstop Hunter Austin during a Brandon Harmon steal attempt and Colby Brown posting an RBI single for a 6-2 Argonaut lead.
 
Jackson Smith remained undefeated with a 5.1 inning performance, allowing just one earned run on five hits with four strikeouts and no walks. After allowing two hits in the first, Smith settled into his outing by retiring seven consecutive batters across the first and third innings.
 
Jarrod Petree was dominant in his outing against the Choctaws, recording his first save of the season after 1.1 innings of hitless relief. The senior reliever got UWF out of bases-loaded, two-out jam in the sixth to preserve a 4-2 lead at the time and across his last three outings, Petree has not allowed a hit to any of the last 13 batters he has faced.
 
West Florida had to overcome five errors in the victory. It was the first time a UWF team has posted five errors in a single game since its NCAA South Regional contest against Tampa on May 19, 2013.
 
UWF saw great production from the eight and nine spots in the lineup, with Tanner May and Brandon Harmon each recording a game-high two hits. The Argonaut pitching staff was able shutdown MC's 7-8-9 hitters, forcing the trio to go 0-for-8 with three strikeouts.
 
UWF and MC wrap up their GSC-opening series tomorrow with a single nine-inning game at 1:00 p.m. Freshman Jared Middleton is scheduled to make his third start of the year.