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Jacksonville, Fla. – Jacksonville scratched out a run in the third and fourth innings and got solid pitching from Victoria Brown to take a 2-1 victory over USC Upstate in the third game of the A-Sun softball series Sunday afternoon, snapping the Spartans' 23-game A-Sun regular season winning streak dating back to last year.

Upstate fell to 21-5 overall and 5-1 in the A-Sun with the loss. The Spartans won the series after sweeping the doubleheader against the Dolphins Saturday. The Spartans will return to action Wednesday when it plays host to NC State in a doubleheader starting at 3 p.m. at Cyrill Stadium. Upstate will then host North Florida in an A-Sun series Saturday and Sunday. Jacksonville improved to 18-16 overall and 2-1 in the A-Sun.

Upstate had last lost a game during A-Sun regular season play in the series finale at Stetson on March 12. The Spartans then rattled off 23 consecutive wins over conference competition, including a sweep at Kennesaw State last weekend and a doubleheader sweep of Jacksonville Saturday, before the loss to the Dolphins Sunday.

A day after Upstate swept the series-opening doubleheader, the Spartans and Dolphins squared off again with the two pitchers of record in each game Saturday facing each other once again. Upstate sent Lexi Shubert into the circle after she collected both wins Saturday and Jacksonville sent Victoria Brown out against the Spartans after she took both losses the previous day.

After a scoreless inning to open the game, Brown ran into a little trouble in the second but got out of the inning unscathed. Brown allowed a one-out single and then a two-out single to put runners on first and second with two outs. However, she got a strikeout to end the inning.

Brown ran into trouble again in the third. But, just like the second inning, she got out of a bases loaded jam unscathed. The Spartans loaded the bases with one out, but Brown got a pop up and strikeout to end the inning with the game still scoreless. The Spartans left a combined five runners on base in the second and third innings.

After pitching a perfect two innings to start the game, Shubert ran into trouble of her own in the third as Jacksonville took an early 1-0 lead. Lexie Ballard singled to lead off the inning and advanced to second on a sacrifice. She advanced to third on a ground out to Shubert and scored on Brown's single to left as the Dolphin pitcher helped her own cause.

Ashley Simon led off the fourth inning with a single and scored on Charli Bradshaw's single down the line to right as Jacksonville opened a 2-0 lead over Upstate.

Upstate entered the game having hit a home run in 24 of 25 games played on the season. The one game without a homer came against No. 9 Florida State in a 2-0 shutout in Tallahassee. Cheyenne Griffin gave Upstate 25 homers in 26 games with a solo shot to right field in the fifth to get the Spartans within a run, 2-1.

Upstate, though, could not use the Griffin homer to get the bats to come alive and was not able to put anything together to threaten the Jacksonville lead in the sixth or seventh innings.

Despite allowing at least one hit in every inning but the first, including the solo home run to Griffin in the fifth, Brown did not allow the Spartans do put the hits together to score runs. She scattered seven Upstate hits and struck out four to earn the win and improve to 12-10 on the year.

Shubert was solid in the circle as well. She took the loss and fell to 14-4 overall and 4-1 in the A-Sun despite allowing just two runs on four Jacksonville hits. She also struck out two along the way.

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