A ninth inning comeback proved too little too late for the Lee baseball team as it fell 4-3 to Young Harris College on a damp and cloudy Tuesday afternoon at Olympic Field.
Trailing 4-1 in their last at-bat the Flames tallied two runs off Dylan Gibeau thanks to a Spencer Mossburg single, walks by Ryan Beamish and Tyler Payne and back to back RBI hit by pitches from Fernando Ortiz and Miguel Pimentel.
With the tying and winning runs in scoring position and two outs the Mountain Lions turned to Jake Tomelavage who promptly induced a game-ending fly out on his first pitch to earn the save.
"We were fortunate to even have an opportunity at the end with some of the miscues we had and giving up 10 hits," acknowledged head coach Mark Brew.
"Ultimately we didn't swing the bats well and didn't make many adjustments at the plate. After Sunday's performance I was hoping for a better approach and more sense of urgency at the plate but we didn't have it today."
Wes Albert started on the mound for the Flames and received a no-decision after allowing an unearned run on a groundout over three innings of work. Albert scattered four hits and struck out five.
Freshman Thomas Zazzaro followed Albert and pitched two scoreless innings of relief. David Pattinson (0-1) was tagged with the loss after struggling to find the strike zone in the top of the sixth. Pattinson failed to retire a batter after yielding two runs, one hit, one walk, and two hit batters.
All totaled coach Mark Brew used six pitchers with Joe Parete settling things down late in the contest retiring all six batters he faced.
"We were fortunate to even have an opportunity at the end with some of the miscues we had and giving up 10 hits," acknowledged head coach Mark Brew. "Ultimately we didn't swing the bats well and didn't make many adjustments at the plate. After Sunday's performance I was hoping for a better approach and more sense of urgency at the plate but we didn't have it today."
Young Harris called on six pitchers as well with Hudson Graham earning the victory after coming on to force a bases-loaded pop up in the bottom fifth to keep the score tied at 1.
Pimentel doubled and drove in a run while Brayden Ware got the Flames on the board in the fifth inning with a perfectly executed sacrifice squeeze bunt to score Peyton Meeker.
Lee had won its seven previous meetings with the Georgia club.
The Flames will now embark on a four-game road trip starting Thursday at Albany State at 4 p.m. From there they will continue south for a three-game weekend set with Florida Southern.