Final Stats NACOGDOCHES, Texas – The Nicholls State University baseball team let a 3-0 lead over Stephen F. Austin slip away in the bottom of the ninth, but the Colonels used a safety squeeze in the 11th to take the lead before adding an insurance run to knock off the Lumberjacks, 5-3, Saturday at Jaycees Field.
 
Nicholls improves to 28-24 and 17-9 in conference play, keeping the Colonels in contention for the Southland Conference regular season title. The win also clinched a berth in the Southland Conference Tournament, which ends the Colonels' two-year drought. With the loss, SFA falls to 18-31 and 9-17.
 
Behind the stellar pitching of Grant Borne, the Colonels led 3-0 after eight and a half innings of play. Christian Correa was responsible for the first run, driving in Leo Vargas in the fourth on a sacrifice fly. Pinch hitter Justin Smith drove in a run in the eighth and Correa came home in the ninth on a wild pitch.
 
Borne, who surrendered only three hits in the first eight innings, ran into trouble in the ninth as SFA tagged him for four hits to score a run. Marc Frazier (1-0) came in to close out the game, allowing a sacrifice fly which made the score 3-2 with two outs. Dan O'Neill then tied the game with a hit up the middle, but Vargas kept the ball from going to the outfield and threw out the SFA runner at home to send the game into extras.
 
In the 11th, Corrier led off the frame with a single and Tanner Vandevere came in to pinch run. After a sacrifice bunt by Justin Holt, Vandevere moved to third on an infield single by Tyler Duplantis. David Zorn then laid down a perfect safety squeeze, with Vandevere beating the play at the plate to give Nicholls a 4-3 lead. Darius Knight capped the inning with a base hit to right to score Zorn, and the ball was misplayed by the rightfielder. Knight tried to score on the play, but was thrown out at home.
 
In the bottom half, Marc Picciola allowed just one hit as he closed out the game for his sixth save of the season.
 
Nicholls had 12 hits in the win, led by Knight's 3-for-5 day. Keith Cormier, Correa and Charles Morton all finished with two hits each.   
 
Borne allowed seven hits in 8.1 innings, striking out five while walking four. His courterpart, Kevin Bishop, also had a solid outing, tossing 7.1 innings with two earned runs on six hits. Ricardo Sanchez led SFA with two hits.
 
The Colonels and Lumberjacks wrap up the series on Sunday at 1 p.m. Live stats, live audio and a live video stream will be available on geauxcolonels.com.