CARY, N.C. – (3) Southern Arkansas (47-12) suffered its first loss of the postseason on Monday night from Coleman Field inside the USA Baseball National Training Complex as (2) Point Loma (50-8) plated four early runs in the second inning and added five more runs in the top of the ninth in an 11-3 decision in the sixth game of the DII Baseball Championship from Cary, North Carolina. The Muleriders will rematch with (6) Rollins on Wednesday, June 8 at 1:30 p.m. EDT in an elimination contest. The winner will advance to Thursday where Point Loma awaits. Live coverage links are available at www.MuleriderAthletics.com.
 
Junior Brett McGee and freshman Brandon Nicoll each delivered two hits and both players doubled as part of seven total hits for the Muleriders in the loss. A sacrifice fly from Chris Sutton that plated junior Conner Allen was the first of two runs to cross for SAU in the third which partly answered the aforementioned four-run, five-hit frame by the Sea Lions in the second. Allen blitzed a 2-2 pitch into left field for a double and then took third on a wild pitch before scoring in Sutton's at bat. Nicoll hammered a full count pitch into leftfield for his 83^rd base knock of the season to plate junior Riley Orr and cut the deficit to 4-2 through three innings of play.
 
Prior to scoring in the home half of the frame, the Muleriders received a nice defensive play from sophomore Chris Lyles who leaped into the leftfield wall to snag a potential home run ball from the Sea Lions' leadoff batter in the frame. Two batters later, Lyles tracked contact toward the leftfield line for a key second out. With the bases loaded against SAU starter Wyatt Marr (9-2), the Muleriders turned to junior Jack Liddell, who made his second appearance of the postseason, and needed just two pitches to escape the jam unscathed.
 
SAU would leave two on in that run-scoring third, while Liddell would work through 3.1 innings of relief scattering five hits, an earned run and a walk with two strikeouts. The right hander worked a quick fourth, pitched around a solo home run to start the fifth to strand one in that frame and then left runners at the corners in the sixth to hold the score at 5-2.
 
Nicoll led off the sixth with his 25^th double of the season and moved to third on a fly out, but was left on. PLNU scratched its sixth run in the seventh to lead 6-2. Sophomore Santos Sosa made his fourth appearance of the postseason and took over for Liddell with no outs and a runner at second in the seventh. He preceded to pick off a runner at first to end the inning which came right after Orr fired to McGee to mow down what would have been the seventh PLNU run.
 
Sosa worked around two singles in the eighth inning; the tenth and eleventh stranded base runners by the Sea Lions in the matchup. In the bottom half, the Muleriders had another chance as Sutton singled through the right side and McGee barreled a pitch off of the warning track in right field to put the first two batters to the plate on first and second for Nicoll. Sutton would score on a wild pitch, but that is all that SAU would muster in the frame.
 
Sophomore Chance Bolter relieved Sosa in the ninth after the Sea Lions added two insurance runs to make it 8-3. PLNU would score three more on a bases-clearing double with two outs and Bolter would end the frame with his second of two strikeouts in his lone inning or work.