Down by an 11-10 margin entering the ninth inning of play, the baseball program at Shawnee State utilized a seven-run top half in the final frame of action to claim a 17-13 victory over the Wilberforce Bulldogs' baseball program Tuesday afternoon at the P&G MLB Cincinnati Reds Youth Academy in Cincinnati.

In the nonconference affair, Shawnee State posted 17 runs on 17 hits en route to claiming the victory. The Bears scored 13 of their 17 runs with two outs on the board -- including each of their seven runs in the top of the ninth.

After a scoreless first inning, a pair of errors and a walk allowed Hunter Warner to score the game's first run on a passed ball, while Ryan Scott followed with an RBI single to center field to give Shawnee State a 2-0 advantage. Diego Mendoza's RBI single and Noah Sniadach's two-RBI double followed, giving the Bears a 5-0 lead after the top half of the second frame of action.

When Wilberforce rallied to cut the Shawnee State lead to a 5-3 margin, Caeleb McGraw's leadoff walk was followed by back-to-back singles by Scott and Nolan Tressler, allowing McGraw to score on an RBI single that put the Bears ahead by a 6-3 count after three innings of work.

In the middle innings, Shawnee State kept its three-run cushion when Luis Mejia answered a Wilberforce run on the passed ball in the fourth inning of action with a solo home run in the top half of the fifth frame, giving the Bears a 7-4 lead after five frames of work. Tressler then scored on a wild pitch in the sixth inning and brought Tyler Lund in on an RBI single in the seventh frame to push the SSU lead to a 9-4 margin after seven innings complete.

That's when the game turned on its heels.

Despite a one-out RBI single from Hunter Warner that gave Shawnee State its 10th run of the contest, the Bears lost the point as Wilberforce posted 10 base hits between the seventh and eighth innings of play to come from behind and take an 11-10 lead.

However, Shawnee State had one more trick up its sleeve.

Following a leadoff flyout, an error, a single by Tressler and an intentional walk loaded the bases for Michael De Jesus, who came up large with the biggest run producing hit of the contest as his two-RBI single allowed Tressler and Mendoza to come around to score while Sniadach also came around to score on an error on the same play.

Up 13-11 at this juncture, De Jesus, who advanced to second on the error, then scored on an RBI single by Hunter Warner and after a third consecutive single by Luis Mejia, Kyle Eslick's RBI single scored Warner and a two-RBI double to left by Lund scored both Mejia and Eslick to round out the crooked seven-run frame. Wilberforce got two runs back on a home run and an RBI single with two gone in the bottom of the ninth to close Shawnee State's lead to a 17-13 count, but never seriously threatened as the Bears' seven-run ninth-inning rally was more than enough to claim the nonconference tilt.

Additional

Luis Mejia (2-for-6, home run, RBI, three runs scored), Noah Sniadach (3-for-5, double, walk, two RBI, three runs scored), Nolan Tressler (3-for-4, walk, two RBI, two runs scored), Hunter Warner (2-for-4, two walks, two RBI, two runs scored), Tyler Lund (2-for-6, double, two RBI, run scored) and Ryan Scott (2-for-6, RBI, run scored) all posted multi-hit outings, while Diego Mendoza (1-for-6, RBI, two runs scored), Kyle Eslick (1-for-1, RBI) and Michael De Jesus (1-for-4, walk, three RBI, run scored) rounded out the output.

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