Box Score
CLEVELAND, Miss. – Displaying the heart of a true champion, Lee baseball battled to the bitter end in the championship game of the Gulf South Conference at Delta State University on Wednesday afternoon.

The never-say-die Flames found themselves down 7-2 after four innings but came fighting back to almost tie the game in the bottom of the ninth inning. Mississippi College turned back the late charge and claimed the title, 7-6.

The suspense built in the ninth as Miguel Pimentel, who was outstanding and named to the all-tournament team, drilled a double down the right field line. Peyton Meeker put down a sacrifice bunt that pushed the tying run to third.

Spencer Mossburg sent a one-hopper back to the pitcher, Tommy Taborda, who immediately fired a strike to the catcher, nailing Pimentel at the plate on a bang-bang play. A ground ball followed ending the seventh-seeded Flames championship hopes.

"This one will sting for a while, but our guys played hard all week and continued to show the resiliency we have shown all year bouncing back from the 7-2 deficit," said a deeply disappointed coach Mark Brew. "We had outstanding efforts all over the field all week and we just came up a little short."

Mississippi College jumped on top 1-0 in the first inning on a home run by Blaine Crim, who was named the tournament most outstanding player. The margin grew to 2-0 in the third before Lee countered with two runs in the bottom of the fourth inning as Mossburg singled and Chase Gadau doubled. Mossburg raced home to score on a throwing error by the Choctaw centerfielder. Dalton Ney singled to score Gadau.

The Choctaws tried to put the contest out of reach in the fifth inning with five runs on six hits to take the 7-2 advantage. The Flames wiggled out of another jam in the sixth behind the strong pitching of Eric Freeman.

Lee cut the lead to 7-5 in the sixth on a three-run homer by Jordan Howard. It was his team-leading 14^th home run of the year. The blast scored Fernando Ortiz who had singled and Tyler Payne, who was hit by a pitch. One more Lee score went up on the board in the seventh to narrow the margin to 7-6. Gadau, who was also an all-tourney selection, singled and later scored on Ryan Bemish's RBI single.

Pat Morrow, who helped the Flames reach the championship round with a complete nine-inning game, joined Pimentel and Gadau, giving Lee the only club with three members on the GSC all-tournament team.

Freshman Thomas Zazzaro earned the start and worked 3.2 innings. He gave up five hits and two earned runs. He was tagged with the pitching loss. Jay Prior came on for 0.1 of an inning then Freeman settled the Flames down and freshman Logan Workman hurled the final inning in convincing style.

Crim finished his monster tournament with four hits and two runs scored. Chris Crosby was the starting Mississippi College pitcher and picked up the win while going six innings. Austin Chastang pitched two innings but it was Taborda who recorded the save.

"Our senior class has left a mark on our program," praised Brew. They did things the right way and I love all of them. They are a special group that's helped our program to a new level. We gained a lot of respect this week in arguably the toughest conference tournament in the country. Our goal is to compete for a conference championship every year and we were right there. We are excited for the future with our returning players and incoming recruiting class."