ALBANY, Ga. -- For the third straight game, Miles got off to a strong start at the SIAC Baseball Championship. But with a first crack at advancing to the championship round, the Golden Bears could not hold off heavy-hitting Spring Hill, surrendering nine straight runs in an 11-7 loss at ASU West Field.

The loss drops the Golden Bears into an elimination game Sunday morning against Albany State and puts them into a position of needing three wins over two days to secure their first league title since 2017. It did not look like Miles was going to need to put in all of that work after the first three innings against the Badgers.

After allowing two runs in the first inning - the first deficit Miles had faced in the tournament - the Golden Bears began to chip away. With two on and one out in the second, Peyton Caron singled to center to bring home William Johnson to cut the Spring Hill lead to 2-1. In the third, though, the Miles offense exploded to take the lead.

A leadoff walk by James Bitner was followed by a mammoth two-run homer to left center by Jacob Bisharat, his team-high 10th of the season, that gave the Golden Bears a 3-2 lead. But the offense kept churning against Badgers starter Micah Morgan. Max Davenport walked and advanced to third on a perfectly executed hit-and-run by Johnson to put runners on the corner.

Johnson stole second and went to third on a wild pitch which allowed Davenport to score. A walk to Clifton Orr was followed by a safety squeeze bunt by Caron that brought in Johnson to give Miles a 5-2 advantage. Meanwhile, senior Will Cantey was trying to navigate the tough Spring Hill lineup on the mound and had held steady through the first three innings, striking out four batters in the process and getting out of a bases-loaded jam in the third. But things would begin to change in the fourth.

The Badgers scored three times with two outs in the fourth, courtesy of two home runs that would tie the score at five. Spring Hill would make a change at pitcher, bringing in Jackson Short (7-0) to slow down the Miles offense, while it kept swinging away. Cantey (0-1) allowed five straight hits to open the sixth before he was pulled. Kolton Easterwood entered but the Golden Bears found themselves down 8-5 at the end of the inning. The offensive onslaught continued into the seventh when three of the first four batters got hits and scored before Easterwood was taken out. By then, the damage was done and SHC had opened an 11-5 lead.

Miles gave it one more go in the ninth inning. Needing base runners, the Golden Bears tried to grind their way back into the game. Bisharat doubled with one out in the ninth, followed by a walk to Michael Archie. After a second out, Johnson was hit by a pitch and Orr - who reached base four times with three walks and a hit by pitch - got another free pass to score Bisharat. Caron got his third RBI of the game when he was hit by a pitch to bring the tying run to the plate. But Eli Snelson popped up to end the game and send Spring Hill to the championship round.