MACON --
Matt Ruiz's pinch hit, 3-run home run in the ninth inning lifted Georgia State to a 14-11 victory at Mercer Wednesday at OrthoGeorgia Park as the Panthers rallied from an 8-1 deficit to complete a season sweep of the Bears.
GSU (22-24) fell behind 8-1 after three innings and still trailed 11-9 before scoring five runs in the ninth. After
Maximus Martin led off with a single, senior third baseman
Will Mize tied the game with a 2-run homer.
JoJo Jackson singled and
Brennan Hudson reached on an error, bringing Ruiz to the plate as a pinch hitter with two outs. The senior hit the first pitch from reliever Graham Yntema over the wall in right center field for the 3-run lead.
Patrick Dunn retired the Bears in the bottom of the ninth with three strikeouts to earn his first save. Dunn followed freshman righthander
Sam Schofield (3-2), who kept the Panthers in the game with 5.1 innings in relief, allowing three runs on three hits with five strikeouts.
After Mercer (23-20) took an 8-1 lead after three innings, Georgia State started to claw back in the fourth when
Ryan Dyal hit a towering 3-run homer to right center that make it 8-4. Hudson contributed an RBI-single in the fifth to cut the deficit to three runs.
The Bears got one back in the fifth, but GSU added two more run in the sixth on an RBI-single by
Michael Maginnis and a run-scoring double by Jackson to pull within 9-7.
The teams traded runs in the seventh and eight innings, with Georgia State scoring on an RBI-single by Martin and base-loaded hit-by-pitch by
Henry Koehler to make it 11-9 after eight.
Mize went 4-for-5 on the night, extending his hitting streak to a career-long 15 games, while Maginnis, Jackson and Dyal had two hits each.
The home runs by Dyal, Mize and Ruiz give Georgia State 77 on the season, first in the Sun Belt Conference and tied for the third-highest season total in program history.
Georgia State heads north for a Sun Belt series at Marshall, beginning Friday at 6 p.m.
