AVE MARIA, Fla.- The Ave Maria University baseball team picked up their biggest win of the 2022 season to date on Friday afternoon with a 10-9 victory over the No. 8 team in the nation, the Keiser University Seahawks. The win snapped an eleven game AMU losing streak to the Seahawks, who were in the NAIA World Series a season ago, and gave the Gyrenes their second conference win over a top 20 team in their first three tries.

Keiser jumped out to a 4-0 lead in the top of the first inning, but the Gyrenes answered with five of their own in the bottom half. Tanner Kelly led off the scoring with an RBI double down the left field line to score Daniel Caylor, who started the inning with a walk. The rest of the scoring came with two outs, starting with an RBI single from Harrison Rossi. Ethan Bergkamp plated Rossi with a double, with the tying run scoring on an error off the bat of Eric Havner. AMU then took the lead on an RBI double from Eli Garcia.

Ave Maria's 5-4 lead would remain until the fifth inning, when the teams traded runs. Keiser evened the score at five following a solo home run from Cyrus Grimes. In the bottom half, Jose Gonzalez singled to lead off the frame, then moved up to second on one of Rossi's three hits. With one out, Havner put the Gyrenes back in front with a single to center field. 

The Seahawks scored the next four runs, scoring three in the sixth and again in the seventh. A solo home run from Zach Mazur tied it in the sixth, with a sacrifice fly from Grimes and a single from Tim Bouchard extending the Keiser lead to 8-6. The run in the seventh inning came across on a wild pitch, which cashed in Anthony Catalano, who had started the action with a walk. 

Friday's decisive inning proved to be the bottom of the seventh. With one out in the inning, the Gyrenes loaded the bases on a walk and a pair of singles. Rocco Pascente drove in the first run of the inning with a sacrifice fly. Caylor then loaded the bases on an infield single that originally saw the AMU leadoff hitter called out before an umpire conference reversed the decision. With the bases loaded, Kelly came up with the big hit, a bases-clearing double to put Ave Maria up 10-9. 

Brandon Willoughby got the ball for the Gyrenes in the eighth inning, and left runners on base in both of the last two frames to earn his first AMU save. Willoughby stranded a runner on second in the eighth, and had a runner on first in the ninth when a deep flyball from the Seahawks was hauled in by Rossi to seal the Ave Maria victory. 

AMU will have a chance to take the series from the Seahawks tomorrow, when the conference series wraps up at Bowie's Ballpark. The Gyrenes and Seahawks are set for a doubleheader in Ave Maria, with first pitch of the opener scheduled for 11:00 a.m.