COLUMBUS, Ga. -- Southern Polytechnic beat the Berry baseball team 9-3 on Sunday at Golden Park to claim the Southern States Athletic Conference Tournament title. The regular season champions of the SSAC, No. 4 Berry will be a host site for an opening round series of the NAIA National Tournament on May 12-15.
After an opening round loss at the double-elimination tournament, Berry fought back to win four consecutive elimination games, including a 9-3 win over SPSU in the first championship game of the tournament. However, the Vikings fell just short of claiming a second SSAC Championship in four years as SPSU was able to reverse the score from the Saturday meeting.
The Hornets jumped on top early with a 4-0 lead in the first two innings and never trailed in the game. Berry fought back with a run in the third inning after a leadoff double by Jarrett Northcutt allowed the junior to break the SPSU shutout.
However, Poly responded with a two-run home run by Chris Hoffer in the bottom of the third. SPSU scored two runs in each of the first three innings to take a 6-1 lead.
Patrick Taylor led the Vikings bats with a 2-for-4 effort. Andrew Starr was 1-for-2 in the game and drove in all three of Berry's runs. Starr came into the tournament as the team's RBI leader and finished as the tournament-leader with 11 RBIs during the week. He has driven in 49 runs this season.
Pitcher David Harden (9-2) got the win for the second-seeded Hornets as he pitched seven innings and struck out three batters. Harden was named SSAC Tournament MVP for his effort during the week. He gave up just four runs (three to Berry on Sunday) in 14 innings of work at the tournament. Thomas Johnson (1-3) took the loss for Berry.
Berry scored three runs on eight hits, but left eight runners stranded on base. The Vikings also hit into three double plays in the game.
Taylor was the only Berry player with more than one hit. Jake Barrow was 3-for-4 to lead SPSU, he drove in two runs and scored twice. Hoffer and Josh Grooms both finished the game 2-for-5 with 2 RBIs each.
As regular season champions of the SSAC Berry had already earned an automatic bid to the NAIA National Tournament Opening Round. Furthermore, Berry's William R. Bowdoin Field was named one of the nine host sites for the opening round of the NAIA National Tournament.
Each opening round site will host a five-team, double-elimination tournament. The winner of each of the opening round tournament sites will advance to join hosts Lewis and Clark State in the 10-team field for the Avista NAIA Baseball World Series on May 22-29 in Lewiston, Idaho.
