HARRISONBURG, Va. – Visiting Norfolk State scored four times in the top of the ninth inning, but its late rally fell just short as James Madison held on for a 6-5 win over the Spartans to complete a three-game sweep on Saturday at Veterans Memorial Park.

NSU (0-3) trailed 6-1 entering the ninth and had no one on with two outs before making the game interesting. Dionte Brown walked and Justin Hayes singled before Brandon Crosby plated Brown with an RBI single to make it 6-2. Alsander Womack followed with a three-run homer to right to get the Spartans within 6-5. It was NSU's first homer of the season.

But JMU reliever Dan Goggin struck out Caleb Ward to end NSU's rally and preserve the win for the Dukes.

JMU (3-0) scored three times in the bottom of the first to get the early upper hand. Trevon Dabney hit an RBI double and scored on an RBI single by Nick Zona to highlight the inning.

NSU scratched across a run on Brown's two-out RBI single in the seventh, but the Dukes answered with three in the bottom of the frame. Zona drove in a run with a grounder and Kyle Hayes added a sacrifice fly as the Dukes extended their edge to 6-1.

Womack ended the game with a 4-for-5 day and drove in three. He finished the weekend with eight hits and had multi-hit games in all three contests. Brown was 1-for-3 with an RBI and Jaran Davis tripled in the loss for the Spartans.

Brady Harju had three hits and Dabney two for JMU, which had 10 hits to the Spartans' nine.

Joe Williams (1-0) earned the win for JMU, pitching five scoreless innings. Jonathan Mahoney (0-1) was charged with the loss for NSU, giving up five earned runs in six-plus innings.

NSU plays a 4 p.m. non-conference game at North Carolina Central on Tuesday.