Luke Holman and Alton Davis combined on a three-hit shutout as Alabama claimed a 4-0 victory over South Alabama at Stanky Field in Mobile on Tuesday night.

Holman went the first seven innings, allowing just three singles and striking out nine, to run his record to 4-0 this season. The sophomore right-hander from Sinking Spring, Pa., threw 65 strikes on 87 pitches and lowered his season ERA to 1.29 in 21 innings.

Davis, a freshman left-hander from Hueytown, retired six of the seven hitters he faced to finish off the game. Designated hitter Will Hodo provided all the necessary offense with a two-run homer in the third and an RBI single in the fifth as the Crimson Tide improved to 16-2 this season and bounced back from losing two of three at home to Columbia over the weekend.

“It was a fun night, especially for a midweek,” Alabama coach Brad Bohannon said. “Obviously, the story of the game for us was Luke Holman, he was really outstanding. Any time you go seven shutout with three hits and nine punchouts, it gives your team a chance to win.”

South Alabama (8-9) lost its third straight game and got only one runner as far as second base all night. The Jaguars put two on with two outs in the second and two on with one out in the seventh, but could not muster a clutch hit.

South Alabama sent 10 different pitchers to the mound, seven of which did not allow a run and four of which totaled at least two of the Jaguars’ 12 strikeouts. Left-hander Danny Diaz (1-1) was tagged with the loss, allowing two runs in the third.

“Alabama is a really good club,” South Alabama coach Mark Calvi said. “I thought we pitched well, they just did a little more than we did offensively. They got seven of our leadoff guys out and we got five out of their nine. We struggled getting anything going.

“Holman’s numbers are outstanding for a reason. He was every bit as good as we thought he was. We didn’t get to his fastball enough and he started mixing in the slider in the second half of the game, early in the count and late in the count. We just didn’t pressure him enough offensively.”

After South Alabama’s Mitchell Heer and Tyler Smith each worked a scoreless inning, Alabama’s Colby Shelton beat out a two-out single in the third. Hodo followed by lofting a fly ball over the right-field wall for his fourth homer of the season and a 2-0 Crimson Tide lead.

Alabama added a run in the fourth when Drew Williamson walked, then stole second and came around to score on Dominic Tamez’s single up the middle. The Crimson Tide set the final score in the fifth when Caden Rose reached on a fielder’s choice, stole second, reached third on a bad throw and came home on Hodo’s line-drive single to left.

“Offensively, we weren’t very efficient,” Bohannon said. “We were a little more active (on the bases) than we normally are. The ballpark was playing really small tonight; the ball just wasn’t carrying. We felt like we needed to steal some bases and shorten the game a little bit. Hodo had the big two-run homer and the RBI single and that was kind of the story offensively.”

The victory was Alabama’s seventh straight over South Alabama, with the Jaguars’ most-recent win coming in 2016. The Crimson Tide leads the overall series 63-48.

Both teams begin conference play this weekend, with Alabama traveling to meet No. 2 Florida for a three-game series beginning Thursday. The series-opener begins at 6 p.m. and will be televised by SEC Network.

“It’s a tremendous, tremendous challenge,” Bohannon said. “You know, everybody says LSU is the best team in the history of college baseball, but golly, if they’re better than Florida I’ve got no interest in going to Baton Rouge. You look at the tape, and Florida (has) three elite, elite starting pitchers, one of the best lineups in college baseball. They’re athletic, tremendous defensively. It will be a heck of a challenge.”

Tuesday’s game drew a season-high crowd of 3,630 on a cool night at Stanky Field. It was the first of back-to-back midweek games against in-state SEC schools for South Alabama, which meets Auburn in Montgomery next Tuesday.

South Alabama limps into Sun Belt Conference play with a losing record, having dropped the final two games at Jacksonville State last weekend. The Jaguars are at Georgia Southern for three games beginning at 5:30 p.m. Friday.

“We’re at Game 17 right now and with such a new team, we need to start putting it together,” Calvi said. “We’ve pitched well at times, we’ve hit well at times and we’ve played good defense at times, it’s a matter of putting it all together. We need two or three guys to step up on the mound and we need two or three guys to step up offensively.”