NORFOLK, Va. – Jonathan Ross hit an RBI triple and Dexter Kelley followed with a squeeze bunt to break a 5-all tie in the 10th inning and propel Savannah State to a 7-5 win over Norfolk State on Friday night at Marty L. Miller Field.

That sequence capped a back-and-forth game that saw NSU trail 4-1 in the eighth, only to rally for a 5-4 lead before the Tigers scored once in the ninth to send it to extra innings.

The game began as a pitchers' duel between two right handers, SSU's Michael Allegretti and NSU's Jason Barker (Chesapeake, Va.). Neither team could threaten until the fourth, when Spartan first baseman Brandon Hairston (North Garden, Va.) hit the first of his two run-scoring doubles to give NSU a 1-0 lead. 

Barker cruised through five innings, but ran into trouble late as the Spartans' normally sound defense struggled. SSU (23-20) scored the next four runs of the game, three of which were unearned thanks to four NSU errors.

Trailing 4-1, NSU (15-21-1) rallied in the bottom of the eighth. NSU got four hits in the inning, with Chris Joyce (Chesapeake, Va.) stroking an RBI single to score TiQuan Griffin (Florence, S.C.) to chase Allegretti from the game and draw NSU within 4-2. But SSU reliever Shawn Gallagher hit John Lynch (Newport News, Va.) with a pitch to load the bases. Hairston then followed with a three-run double down the left-field line off Eric Ransom to give the Spartans a 5-4 lead.

But the Tigers tied the game at 5-all in the ninth without benefit of a hit off NSU closer Ryan Shook (Virginia Beach, Va.). Shook fanned Joseph McCrary to start the frame, but Kevin Herlihy reached base on the fifth NSU error of the night and advanced all the way to second. A groundout moved Herlihy to third, and he scored on a Shook wild pitch on a close play at home to knot the score at 5.

The Spartans put the first two runners of the ninth. But Herlihy, who moved from center field to the mound as SSU's fourth pitcher of the night, induced a double play and another groundout to send the game into extra innings.

Darien Campbell then led off the 10th with his third hit of the game, an infield single. He moved to second on a sacrifice, then scored on Ross' hit to right-center. Ross then scored when Kelley laid down a sacrifice bunt to make it 7-5.

The Spartans got a pair of hits in the bottom of the 10th, but Herlihy got out of the jam with a flyout to end the game.

Herlihy (4-4) pitched two scoreless innings for the win, while Shook (2-2) allowed three runs - two earned – in two frames to take the loss.

Neither starting pitcher factored into the decision, but both threw well. Allegretti gave up six hits and four earned runs in 7.1 innings. He struck out seven. Barker yielded seven hits and four runs, just one earned, in eight innings of work. Both pitchers walked just one hitter apiece.

Campbell was 3-for-4 and scored three times to pace the Tigers' offense. Blake Lee added two hits.
Hairston was 3-for-5 with four RBI for the Spartans. Sammy Serafine (Chesapeake, Va.) went 2-for-4 with a double, and Joyce scored a pair of runs.

The teams play a doubleheader beginning at 1 p.m. on Saturday.