It was a tale of two games as the Lee baseball team battled Bellarmine on a chilly Tuesday afternoon from Olympic Field. In the immortal words of author Charles Dickens it quite literally was the best of times and the worst of times as the Flames rolled to a 12-2 game one win before falling 21-3 in the nightcap to the Knights.

The split keeps the Flames even at 9-9 on the year while the Knights move to 7-5 overall. The two clubs will wrap up the three-game set tomorrow afternoon at Olympic Field at 2 p.m.

"Not often do you find yourself winning that big and then turn around and lose by a large margin. We have had issues in second games of doubleheaders and I need to do a better job of getting the team ready to play throughout the entire day," said Lee skipper Mark Brew. "We have an opportunity to take the series from a quality opponent tomorrow and we need to come out with lots of relentless energy and focus."

GAME 1
After giving up a solo home run in the first inning the Flames rattled off 12 straight runs to cruise to victory in game one on Tuesday.

Dalton Ney got the party start with a three-run homer to left field in the second. Ney would add his fourth RBI on an infield single in the fourth.

Miguel Pimentel continued to swing a hot bat for the Flames as he hit a solo home run in third and added a sacrifice fly in the fourth. Justen Freeman, Tyler Payne and Justin Fragale each had multi-hit games as all totaled the Lee bats tallied 14 hits and drew six walks.

Thomas Zazzaro started and worked five solid innings to move to 1-1 on the year. He gave up just the solo homer and struck out four. Lance Hamilton allowed one run on two hits in two relief innings.

"I really like the way Thomas Zazzaro competed after the first inning. He really dialed it in and pitched well until the offense could grab some distance on the scoreboard," said Brew. "At the plate it was good to see Dalton Ney get back to where we thought he could be. He had a rough start, but really has had some nice AB's over the last few days and it showed up in a big way in this game."

Shane Barringer (1-1) was chased after just two innings on the mound for the Knights. He allowed three runs on six hits. Delyan Miley led Bellarmine with three hits in the contest.

GAME 2
The Bellarmine Knights responded in a big way in Tuesday's nightcap as they exploded for 21 runs on 22 hits to hand the Flames a 21-3 loss.

Matt Higgins homered, doubled and drove in four runs in the victory. Zac Wiley also had four RBI and Jacob Mulcahy went 5 for 6 with two runs scored to highlight the offensive outburst for the Knights.

Outside of a Pimentel who doubled, singled and drove in a run and Payne who added three more hits to give him five on the day, the Flames didn't have a whole lot to cheer about.

Alan Rickman (0-3) started on the mound for the Flames and five runs, three earned on eight hits over 2.2 innings. Lee used six pitchers in the seven-inning game.

Alex Phillips got the call for Bellarmine and gave up two runs on four hits in three frames. Anthony Ethington (1-0) got the win as he one run on four hits in the final four innings.

"The game slipped away from us quickly. We just couldn't push the right button and get off the field with two outs. Give Bellarmine credit. They swung the bats really well and pressured us with base runners the whole game," concluded Brew.