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The Blinn Buccaneers earned a place in the winner?s bracket Sunday afternoon as they came from behind to beat Texarkana College 11-6 in game two of the NJCAA Region XIV Baseball Tournament at Northeast Texas Community College in Mount Pleasant.
Texarkana jumped out to an early 3-0 lead in the top of the second. Texarkana added another two in the third and one more in the top of the fourth. Blinn finally got on the board in the bottom of the fourth, scoring three runs.
Both teams failed to score in the sixth and seventh. The eighth inning turned the tides for Blinn as they rallied with an additional eight runs. This included a grand slam homer by Eric Wood .
Wood led Blinn offensively with three hits in five at-bats. In addition to his grand slam he also singled and batted in four.
Eric Preuss also homered in the game. Quinton Evans and Holden Cammack had two hits apiece.
Jason Simms picked up the win with seven innings pitched, giving up four hits and one walk and striking out 10. Kevin Hahn also pitched two innings giving up five hits, five runs and one walk
Texarkana?s hitting was led by Jon Phillips and Byron Reichstein, with two hits each. Caleb Hawkins picked up the loss for Texarkana. He pitched 1.1 innings, gave up five hits and six runs.† Tyler Eppler started for Texarkana, pitching six innings. He gave up six hits, three runs, two walks and struck out four. Wes Cox closed with .2 innings pitched.
Blinn will face the winner of the Galveston versus Northeast Texas Community College game Monday at 8 p.m. Texarkana will face the loser of the same game at 1 p.m. on Monday.
Fans can follow the tourney action live at ntcceagles.com/tourney.
