ARKADELPHIA, Ark. – The No. 5-seed Southern Arkansas baseball team was eliminated from the 2016 Great American Conference Baseball Tournament on Saturday afternoon after No. 4-seed Henderson State defeated SAU by a final score of 9-5 at Clyde Berry Field in Arkadelphia.
 
Coming into Saturday's game, the Muleriders (30-20) needed to beat Henderson State twice to move past the best-of-three opening round series and advance the "Final Four" of the GAC Tournament; and a three-run top of the second inning looked to have SAU on their way.
 
In that inning, the Muleriders got a two-run homerun from David LaFleur and a RBI double from Michael Page as SAU grabbed a 3-0 lead.
 
The Reddies (29-23), however, answered back with a four-run bottom of the second inning to take a one-run lead, 4-3. Henderson then added a single run in the third and two more in the fourth to take a 7-3 lead.
 
A Jake Tisevich sacrifice fly in the top of the fifth brought home Josey Langston and made it a 7-4 game.
 
Henderson went on to score single runs in the fifth and seventh innings, respectively, making the score 9-4.
 
In the top of the eighth, senior All-GAC First-Team Utility player Billy Germaine hit a solo homerun off of Henderson's starting pitcher Chris Hunt to bring the game to its eventual final of 9-5.
 
The homerun for Germaine was his 18^th of the season, which tied him with John Long (2008) and Tracy Geffre (2003) for the third-most homeruns hit in a season at SAU. Additionally, it was Germaine's 30^th career homerun, which places him alone at third on the all-time list at Southern Arkansas.