South Alabama walked away with a 5-4 extra-inning victory over Texas State in most unusual fashion on Friday at Stanky Field.

The Jaguars scored the winning run on Erick Orbeta’s two-out infield single in the bottom of the 10th inning, but only after two failed bunt attempts resulted in outs at third and home. Even the final play was strange, as Bobcats second baseman Chase Mora missed the base when trying to force South Alabama’s Cole Ketzner out at second, allowing Ketzner to slide in safely and Micah Morgan to race home from third with the decisive run.

“It was crazy,” Ketzner said. “We’ve had a lot of plays not go our way this year. We’ve also shot ourselves in the foot a lot. But Orbeta’s a guy we want up in any situation like that; we know he’s going to get the job done. (Mora) fields it, comes through the middle, misses the bag and I was like ‘hey, we’re safe, we’re safe!’

“I didn’t really remember the run was coming in. Next thing you know, we’re winning the ball game. It was awesome. It was a great swing of emotions.”

With the win, South Alabama (15-17, 5-7) claimed the three-game Sun Belt Conference series after splitting a doubleheader on Thursday. The Jaguars have won six of eight games the last two weeks.

Ketzner — who entered the game at catcher after Diego Altamirano was removed for a pinch-runner in the eighth — had been one of the failed bunters earlier in the 10th. Tyler Borges led off the inning with a walk, then took second on a wild pitch.

Colson Lawrence then tried to bunt Borges to third, but Texas State (20-12, 6-6) executed its wheel play perfectly and threw him out. After Morgan singled to put runners on the corners with one out, Ketzner couldn’t get his bunt past Bobcats pitcher Jack Stroud and Stroud tagged Lawrence out short of the plate.

That brought up Orbeta, who chopped a 1-1 pitch up the middle. Mora fielded the ball cleanly, but missed the bag in his haste to record the out, and Morgan scored the game-winner.

“Striking out gets you nowhere, and our guys have done a really good job all year not striking out,” South Alabama coach Mark Calvi said. “And we faced some pretty good stuff here today. … Our guys just hung in there tough. That’s a good club over there (Texas State).

“… A month ago, we lose that game, because we have so many guys looking around and saying ‘who’s going to get the bunt down or get the hit?’ instead of ‘I’m going to get the bunt down or get the hit.’ You see us trending in the right direction in a lot of areas.”

Ketzner said he clearly saw Mora’s missed foot tag as he was sliding into second.

“I had a pretty good view,” Ketzner said. “He barely missed it. I was hoping the umpire would have the same view as me, and he did.”

The walk-off win was South Alabama’s first since Hunter Stokes homered in the ninth to beat Campbell in 2020. It was the first vs. a conference opponent since Brendan Donovan’s game-winning single vs. Georgia Southern in the championship game of the 2017 Sun Belt tournament.

Orbeta had four of South Alabama’s 11 hits in six trips to the plate, and also scored two runs. Turner was 3-for-5 with an RBI and a run scored, while Morgan was 3-for-4 with a run and an RBI.

The game featured four lead changes, as Texas State got Davis Powell’s sacrifice fly in the second to go up 1-0. South Alabama tied it 1-1 on Morgan’s RBI single in the fourth, then took a 2-1 lead on Trey Lewis’ squeeze bunt in the fifth.

The Bobcats went back on top with two in the seventh on Cade Manning’s line-drive solo homer to right and Ben McClain’s RBI single. The Jaguars took a 4-3 lead in the bottom of the inning when Will Turner doubled home Orbeta and later scored on a wild pitch.

The lead would not hold, however, as Mora led off the eighth inning with a solo homer off the scoreboard in left field. The Bobcats got a runner to second in both the eighth and the ninth, but Jaguars closer Grant Wood got out of the jam both times.

Lawrence (1-0) pitched a 1-2-3 10th to pick up the win after playing the first nine innings in right field. Wood allowed three runs in 3 1/3 innings in relief of starter Mitchell Heer, who gave up a run on four hits in 5 2/3.

Stroud (2-2) took the loss for Texas State, allowing a run on four hits in 2 2/3 innings. Bobcats starter Tony Robie surrendered two runs in 4 1/3, while Triston Dixon gave up two runs in 2 2/3.

“I thought Mitch Herr was the story of the game, doing what he did,” Calvi said. “And then Grant Wood coming in and striking out Mora in the sixth with two outs. He’ll tell you that wasn’t his best outing, and it wasn’t, numbers-wise. But Woody hung in there. … He battled like crazy. And then Colson did a really good job at the end there.”

South Alabama hits the road next week, playing at Alabama State on Tuesday and at Louisiana-Monroe for three games beginning next Friday.