MOBILE, Ala-- Cody Barber's walk-off 3-run home run in the bottom of the 7th in Saturday's finale gave Mobile a 4-3 win over Talladega College after dropping the opener 10-9 in 10 innings.
Mobile (5-4) will visit Talladega for a 3-game series beginning with a 1 pm game Friday, Feb. 18.
Tornadoes starter James Rodriguez had breezed through 6 innings of 2-hit, shutout ball before running into trouble with a 3-run lead in the final inning.
Jeremy Williams reached on an error to start the frame and later moved to 3rd on an error, while Sam Mahoney walked to put runners at the corners. Mobile used a double steal to plate the first run and then after a Derek Bourgeois walk, Barber jumped all over the first pitch he saw to send it over the left field fence for the game-winner.
Rodriguez ended up working 6.1 innings of 3-hit ball while allowing 3 earned runs. Jeff Lyons picked up the win for Mobile with .2 innings of -hit, scoreless relief.
Talladega took the first game 10-9 in 10 innings thanks to a lineup that pounded out 15 hits off of the Mobile pitching staff.
Chase Benfield picked up the win for the Tornadoes after working 6 innings of 3-hit, shutout relief, while John Ladnier was tagged with the loss for Mobile after giving up 1 run on 3 hits in 3 innings of relief work.
Brady King and Jeremy Williams each collected 2 hits for Mobile, while Sam Mahoney drove in 3 runs. Ryan Waltman, Cody Barber and Ben Negus each scored a pair of runs.
Talladega had hitters on fire up and down the lineup, as Richard Cochran went 4-3 from the 3-spot and Jean Ortiz finished 4-5 with 2 RBI out of the 8-hole. Jesse Sharbutt and Nelson Pacheco each finished with 2 hits and 2 RBI.
The teams produced 18 runs through the first 5 innings of play, but the bullpens bounced back to put up 0's from the 6th-9th. After a leadoff out in the top of the 10th, the Tornadoes used back-to-back doubles from Sharbutt and Chocran to plate the winning run.
In the wild opening 5 innings, the Rams actually took a 5-3 lead after a 4-spot in the 2nd, thanks to 2 hits and an error. Brady King ripped an RBI-single off the pitcher's leg and Jeremy Williams and Mahoney added RBI-groundouts.
But, Talladega answered right back with a 3-run 3rd to take a a 6-5 lead in the back-and-forth tussle. Two-out RBI-singles from Jean Ortiz and Emmanuel Pina highlighted that scoring.
Talladega went on to build a 9-7 lead after the top of the 5th, but Mobile tied it up with a 2 runs on 1 hit in the bottom half of the frame. Back-to-back walks started the rally and a wild pitch put the runners in scoring position. Derek Bourgeois followed with a pinch-hit RBI-single and Ben Negus tied it with a sac fly.