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The Georgia Southern baseball team hosted conference rival James Madison in Statesboro over the weekend. The home team dropped two of three games to lose what was a tense series.
Each team split the first two contests of the set leaving a rubber match on Sunday to decide a winner. The Dukes were able to close out a 7-6 win just before benches emptied onto the diamond.
The scene played out in the bottom of the ninth frame with the Eagles looking to mount a comeback effort. Trailing by one run in their final at-bat, Georgia Southern came just shy of walking things off.
Slugger Cade Parker stepped up to the dish with two runners on and two outs. He hit a bomb that was tracked down deep in the outfield by the Dukes’ left fielder.
Had it left the yard, Georgia Southern would’ve won, 9-7. It did not, and James Madison let the Eagles know.
Georgia Southern baseball nearly fights JMU.
Georgia Southern and JMU clear the benches after a fiery finish in the bottom of the 9th.
Appears Eagles head coach Rodney Hennon got shoved by JMU pitching coach Shane Halley & yelled at by the Dukes while trying to get his guys to calm down. pic.twitter.com/0zeSBaiRNB
— Pat Timlin (@pat_timlin) May 4, 2025
Some trash talk was exchanged as James Madison celebrated victory. Pushing and shoving ensued, with the Eagles’ 55-year-old head coach getting involved.
Rodney Hennon entered the area looking to calm down his players. Instead, he began going after the Dukes’ coaches in response to being bumped by a staff member.
Cooler heads eventually prevailed as the teams were split up. It was a moment that had been building in that ninth inning.
Earlier in the frame, there was another dust-up between the two sides. The confrontation was the result of a back and forth after a double play.
Earlier in the 9th inning the benches almost cleared after a slide into second base on a double play. Daniel Haab and Jack Anderson exchanged words and Haab was ejected.
Coach Hennon shared some insight on how it all played out, and those emotions boiled over to the finish pic.twitter.com/hvg3x7pOu9
— Pat Timlin (@pat_timlin) May 5, 2025
Georgia Southern’s Daniel Haab was ejected after sliding into a James Madison defender. Hennon opened up on the situation after the game.
“During the course of that contact, there were some words exchanged,” the coach said. “The umpire said that they saw their guy pushing Danny [Haab] looking to get away from him… As that happened, words were exchanged. Don’t know that they heard that. Danny’s not one to just come up and react that way.”
James Madison escaped with the one-run win. The Eagles were unhappy with the way their opponent conducted itself in the final moments of action. Rodney Hennon was close to blows with his rival’s coaching staff. It should make for an interesting story if the teams see a rematch in the Sunbelt Conference Tournament.