BALTIMORE --
Danny Wyatt hit a walk-off single in the bottom of the ninth to rally the UMBC Baseball team to a wild 12-11 victory over visiting UMass Lowell on Sunday to clinch the series victory.
The Retrievers (18-16, 7-5 AE) found themselves down 11-9 with two outs and no one on in the bottom of the eighth, before mounting a comeback to secure the win.
UMBC got on the board early, taking a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the first thanks to an RBI groundout from Wyatt and and RBI single from
Ehi Okojie. UMass Lowell would respond with four in the top of the second to take a 4-2 lead.
Derek Paris blasted a solo homer in the bottom of the fourth to trim the deficit to 4-3, but the River Hawks answered with a solo shot of their own in the top of the fifth to push the lead back to to two at 5-3.
The Dawgs would then explode for six runs in the bottom of the fifth to go up 9-5.
Danny Orr and Wyatt would hit-back-to-back homers to leadoff the inning and tie the game. Okojie then greeted a new pitcher with a single, and after a pop out,
Anthony Mascuilli drew a walk. Brooks Henders drew a two-out walk two batters later, and
Dylan Melton drove in the go-ahead run on a walk of his own. After another pitching change,
Kyle Eddington slapped a two-RBI single, and two batters later, Wyatt would drive in another run when he was hit-by-a-pitch with the bases loaded.
UMass Lowell would fight back, getting three in the top of the sixth, and then taking advantage of a pair of UMBC errors to plate three more unearned runs in the top of the eighth to take an 11-9 lead.
After a pair of strikeouts to open the bottom of the eighth, Okojie and Paris hit back-to-back singles, to put two on. Mascuilli then drove in Okojie with an RBI single of his own to make it 11-10.
Kailen Hackmann pitched a perfect top of the ninth to setup the dramatic finish in the bottom half of the inning. Henderson opened up the inning by reaching on a throwing error. His pinch runner
Luke Buscaglia then stole both second and third and scored on a Melton single to tie the game. Eddington then used a sacrifice bunt to put pinch-runner
Jacob Bagania into scoring position. UML then opted to intentionally walk Orr to face Wyatt who lined an 0-1 pitch into left to score Bagania and win the game.
Hackmann improved to 4-0 after pitching the final two innings and striking out two without allowing an earned run. Melton and Okojie each went 3-for-5 with two runs scored, while Orr, Wyatt, Paris and Okojie all had two-hit games.
UMBC will host local rival Towson on Tuesday night at 6 p.m.
