MACON, Ga. -- Miles has had a tough go of it down the stretch of the 2026 regular season. Facing the No. 2 Albany State to open the 2026 SIAC Baseball Championship looked like a tough draw as well, with the Golden Bears having lost eight straight and 12-of-13 to the Golden Rams - a team that outscored Miles by 34 runs during a three-game sweep two weeks ago - while entering the tournament as the worst hitting team in the conference.
So, of course, Miles scores 15 runs and wins going away.
The Golden Bears produced a season-high 14 hits,
Gregory Willis drove in five runs and Miles erased a six-run deficit while scoring 10 unanswered runs in the fifth and sixth innings to upset Albany State 15-11 on Thursday afternoon at Louis Williams Field. The win pushes Miles (21-22) into a winner's bracket battle on Friday at 10:30 a.m. against No. 3 seed Edward Waters.
Things did not look good after three innings as Albany State (31-17) had scored in each of first three innings to open a 7-2 advantage. Even after Willis and
Trey Walker drove in runs in the fourth to cut into the deficit, the Golden Rams added three runs in the bottom of the frame to jump ahead 10-4.
But in the fifth, Miles started the big comeback.
Ajani Lyons,
Mason Lynch, Willis and
Landon Whitehead each had RBI as the Golden Bears doubled their run total and clawed to within 10-8. Miles finally kept Albany State off the board in the fifth as
Elijia Barney (2-1) came in with two runners on and one out and was able to stem the tide.Â
Zakry Licastro got the fun stated in the sixth with a RBI single that scored
Myles Wessels to bring Miles to within a single run. The game was tied on a catcher's interference call that allowed
Michael Smith to score. Then Willis had the big hit, a bases-clearing double that plated Lynch, Licastro and
Malachi Jeffries to give the Golden Bears their first lead at 13-10. Two pitches later, Whitehead - the ninth batter of the inning - laced a single to center to bring in Willis for a four-run cushion.
After another scoreless inning from Barney in the bottom of the sixth, Wessels led off the seventh with a triple and scored one out later on a squeeze bunt by Jeffries for a 15-10 lead. While the Golden Rams got a run back in the bottom of the frame,
Darryl Johnson pitched the final 1 2/3 inning for his first save and sent Albany State into the loser's bracket.
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