UAPB Lion baseball rallies twice to win series

BATON ROUGE, Louisiana — For champions in any sport at any level, there are usually at least one or two games that stick out when thinking about the team’s road to a title.

If the Arkansas-Pine Bluff baseball team wins its third consecutive Southwestern Athletic Conference West Division crown this year, Friday’s stunning victory over Southern will surely be one of the games coach Carlos James and Co. point to in getting the Golden Lions there.

Facing a 9-4 deficit after six innings, UAPB rallied off three in the seventh, one in the eighth and two in the ninth off Julian Jones’ home run to steal a 10-9 win. The Lions then went on to take one of two in Saturday’s doubleheader — a 5-3 loss and 7-2 victory — to win their second straight SWAC series.

On Friday, UAPB (6-16, 6-3) actually jumped out on top with a three-run first inning. The Lions could have done more damage but Jordan Knox was called out on what would have been a three-run homer when he passed Jacob Columbo on the bases, turning the play into a two-RBI single.

Southern (8-13, 3-5) chased Anthony Bowmaker in the second inning. He allowed four runs in that second frame. Ashton Holdridge came on and allowed five runs over 5 1/3 innings.

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