Winthrop baseball finally runs out of gas at Big South tournament Sunday morning

Winthrop's No. 1 seeded baseball team wasn't able to pull off another last-inning comeback against No. 3 seed Presbyterian College on Sunday morning as the Eagles lost 9-4 in seven innings at the Lexington County Baseball Stadium and were eliminated from the 2017 Big South Conference tournament.

The Eagles finished the year with a 34-24 record while PC advanced to Sunday afternoon's championship game against Radford.

Winthrop forced the Sunday morning game by beating Presbyterian Saturday night with a bottom of the ninth comeback, the team’s third last-inning win in as many days.

But the Blue Hose jumped on Winthrop starter Colton Rendon Sunday morning for five runs in the top of the first inning. PC shortstop Cletis Avery started the offense with a one-out home run to left, Thatcher Coleman ripped an RBI double and A.J. Priaulx unloaded a home run to right field to make it 5-0 early.

Winthrop answered with a single run in the bottom of the inning on a solo homer by Grant English off PC starter Eric Miles.

The Blue Hose made it 6-1 in the second when Tyler Weyenberg delivered a solo home run off Winthrop reliever Riley Arnone. The Blue Hose added two unearned runs in the fourth to extend their lead to 8-1.

Winthrop scored twice in the bottom of the fifth to close to within 9-4. English, Anthony Paulsen and Mitch Spires had consecutive singles to load the bases. Hunter Lipscomb drove in English with a sacrifice fly before Thomas scored Paulsen with a base hit.

PC ended the game with nine runs on 13 hits while Winthrop had four runs on 12 hits.

Thomas went 3-for-3 at the plate to lead the Winthrop offense. English and Paulsen were 2-for-4. Wise led the Blue Hose was 3-for-4 while Guimbarda and Coleman had two hits each.

This story was originally published May 28, 2017 at 1:02 PM with the headline "Winthrop baseball finally runs out of gas at Big South tournament Sunday morning."