"It did not come easy, I tell you what," said Hudak, dripping from a postgame Gatorade shower but still happy. "There was so much riding on it."

The Eagles (23-31, 10-9 Big South) and Bulldogs (22-32, 5-14) combined for 36 hits and six three-run innings. Winthrop gave up three runs each in the seventh, eighth and ninth, including a two-out, three-run game-tying homer to Elliott Arrington, before finally recording a scoreless frame.

John Murrian walked to lead off the 10th and was sacrificed to second by Tyler McBride. Kevin Nolan stung a two-out single up the middle to score Murrian and turned the reins again over to Ryan Mullins.

Mullins entered in the ninth and got a big pickoff of Justin Schumer (0-5) at first base. But the next batter, Arrington, tattooed a pitch out of the park to tie the game.

Mullins (6-2) took the hill for the 10th and gave up a leadoff single to Danny Baatz. A sacrifice bunt went right to Mullins, who got Baatz at second base for the first out.

Tyler Jankowski went down on strikes and Brett Robinson tapped a grounder to Nolan. Nolan flipped to Aaron Bonomi at second and Winthrop finally had a win, four hours after the game began.

The Eagles were one off the school record for doubles, hitting nine. Winthrop won after blowing a five-run lead set up by Hamilton Bennett, who had to settle for another no-decision when Mike Ritson, Josh McDonald and Mullins couldn't get timely outs.

Still, it was worth it. The Eagles could finally relax about not having to play in the first round of the tournament next week, thus avoiding the one-and-done scenario, and got to celebrate with Hudak afterward.

Bennett and Wade Newman doused Hudak and Bonomi presented his coach with the game ball. The rest of the team congratulated Hudak with handshakes and hugs.

"We just kept swinging," Hudak said. "Proud of the guys for how hard they played tonight. Had a lot of things go wrong for this year. This could have been another one."

The teams play again at 4:45 p.m. today.