Shenandoah falls in walk-off fashion to Lynchburg in ODAC championship

Shenandoah University lost a heartbreaker in Game 3 of the ODAC baseball tournament championship series against Lynchburg on Saturday and fell short of its bid for a third straight conference title.

SU (31-11), which led by four runs in the seventh inning and by two entering the final frame, saw Lynchburg rally for three runs in the bottom of the ninth to walk off with a 9-8 win. The victory gave Lynchburg its first ODAC title since 2012 and an automatic berth in the NCAA Division III Tournament.

Shenandoah, which has been ranked in the D3baseball.com/National Collegiate Baseball Writers’ Association Top 25 all season, awaited word on Sunday evening whether it received one of six at-large bids for the NCAA playoffs.

No. 4 SU and second-seeded Lynchburg (34-13) matched each other run for run through the first two innings of Saturday’s decisive Game 3 of the best-of-three championship series before Shenandoah broke a 4-4 tie with two runs in the third. SU added single runs in the sixth and seventh to take an 8-4 lead but saw Lynchburg cut that deficit in half with two runs in the bottom of the seventh.

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