JACKSON, Tenn. - Whew.
Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College tied a school record with its 38th win of 2026 Thursday afternoon, hanging on by the skin of their teeth to defeat Mobile, 8-7, in the Southern States Athletic Conference baseball tournament at Rockabillys Stadium.
Quinten Rawls broke a 7-7 tie in the 7th by driving in
Joe Cooney with a single.
Tre'von Lee, called in to tackle major trouble in the 6th, picked up the win with 3 2/3-inning, two-hit, six-strikeout performance.
ABAC plays their final pool game Friday at 2 p.m. EST against Faulkner. Faulkner ran its Pool A record to 2-0 earlier in the day with a 5-1 win over Brewton-Parker. Friday's winner will advance to the SSAC championship on Saturday.
It was a rollercoaster of a nine innings. ABAC led 4-0 after two frames and 6-1 after five. When their turn to bat rolled around in the bottom of the 6th, however, it was the Rams who had the lead, thanks to a wild, six-run top half that chased Stallions starter
Kade Haywood.
Everything that could go wrong in the 6th did for ABAC.
Mobile sent 10 to the plate. Â There was a wild pitch, a balk, a hit-by-pitch, and even momentary confusion over the score. After a dropped third strike with two outs, the broadcast scoreboard flashed 8-6 for the Rams. An inning later, the broadcast team said the runner that touched home while
Parker Wallace was throwing to
Chasin Cash at first, that the run actually did not score.
The inning also saw a break for the Stallions.
Reese Buck hit a pitch high and deep to left field. Somehow, the wind caught the pitch and brought it back down to earth, albeit off the wall. It was only a single and the runners could move up a base. Though Buck eventually scored on the hit-by-pitch, the momentum did not switch as much as it could have.
After Lee got the Stallions out of the 6th down only the run, ABAC turned Mobile's momentum on its head.Â
Dylan Davis crushed a two-out solo home run to left field in the bottom of the 6th and the hard-earned Rams lead was now reduced to a 7-7 tie.
Lee struck out the side in the 7th, working around a single and a wild pitch.
In the bottom half, Cooney led off with a four-pitch walk. He went two second on a wild pitch, then to third on a Wallace base hit to left field.
Billy Girgis was unable to get the run home, but his grounder moved Wallace's courtesy runner,
Trace Hodges, to second. That set up Rawls and he delivered a single to center. Cooney scored easily, but a perfect throw got Hodges at the plate. The Rams then got the third out when Rawls tried to move up to second on the play.
Lee had a 1-2-3 frame. ABAC put two aboard in the 8th - Davis and Cooney - but with two outs.
Now in the 9th, Lee got two outs quickly before Mobile's Adrian Salas flipped a single to right. The Rams put the go-ahead run on with a walk, but Lee was not rattled and coaxed a ground ball to
Drew Rothschild at third to close out his fourth win of the year.
ABAC tried to make Thursday's game an early runaway.
Zack Bowman and Davis got aboard in the 1st on a infield single and walk, respectively. Cooney sent a moonshot over the Blue Monster in left and the Stallions went up 3-0.,
The top-seeded Stallions made it 4-0 in the 2nd. Girgis singled, moved up on a Rawls single and a fielder's choice, then a Rams' miscue brought him home.
ABAC had 12 hits, two each by Rawls, Davis, Campbell and Rothschild. Cooney had 3 RBIs on his fifth homer of the year. Davis' blast was his 11th.
