Santa Fe uses big inning to down top-ranked Eagles

GAINESVILLE, Fla. (February 19, 2014) - FCSAA No. 1 Tallahassee Community College was in position for its 13th win in 14 tries, after scoring three runs in the top of the seventh inning to take a 7-3 lead against Santa Fe College on Wednesday afternoon. 

Then the bottom of the seventh happened. 

Santa Fe sent 16 men to the plate in the seventh and scored 11 runs to turn the game around and eventually defeated the Eagles, 14-10, in a high-scoring affair between the two teams. 

Tallahassee is 12-2 heading into a 16-game homestand that begins Friday with a 6 p.m. visit from No. 3 State College of Florida. 

After falling behind 2-0, the Eagles battled back to tie the game then took the lead in the sixth on Matt Olive's RBI-single to right. An error by Santa Fe pitcher Derek Vail allowed Johnny Blue Craig to race home from third with the second run of the inning and give Tallahassee a 4-2 advantage. 

The Saints got one run back in the bottom of the sixth but Tallahassee answered in the top of the seventh, courtesy of D.J. McKnight's three-run homer and appeared to have control, up 7-3.   

Micah Dunn issued a leadoff walk to Casey Scoggins to start the Santa Fe seventh and things went downhill from there for the Eagles. 

Tallahassee used four pitchers in the inning, which finally ended when Logan Elliot got Andrew Fears to hit into an inning-ending double play. Santa Fe collected nine hits in the inning and took advantage of two Tallahassee errors to erase a four-run deficit and take a 14-7 lead. 

Riley Hodge took the loss for Tallahassee. 

Offensively, the Eagles were led by Jonathan Burkett, who was 3-for-4 with a run scored. Ryne Willard (2-for-5, three RBI), Quincy Nieporte (2-for-5, two runs) and Olive (2-for-5, two runs, RBI) also had multi-hit games.