ROCK HILL, SC-  The Winthrop baseball team scored four runs in the eighth inning to take a 6-5 comeback win over No. 1 seed Liberty and advance to the Big South Championship game for the first time since 2009.  With the win, the Eagles improve to 27-32, while the Flames record falls to 41-16.

Winthrop will now have a chance to make its first NCAA tournament appearance since 2006 when it received an at-large bid to the Chapel Hill Regional.  The last Big South championship came in 2005 when Winthrop advanced to the Knoxville Regional. 

Travis Shelley picked up the win on the mound for Winthrop to improve to 4-1.  Jason Driver picked up his fourth save of the year for the Eagles.  Perritt was saddled with the loss to fall to 1-2.

Winthrop, the visitors on the scoreboard, took the early 1-0 lead in the top of the first.  Tyler Asbill led the inning off with a single.  Leighton Daniels advanced Asbill with a sacrifice bunt.  Two batters later, Cody Dolan brought Asbill around with a single up the middle.

Winthrop added a run in the top of the fourth to push its lead to 2-0.  Babe Thomas led the inning off with a walk and moved up to second on a John Menken groundout.  Clay Altman and Brad Kaczka each drew walks to load the bases.  Kyle Edwards followed with a groundout to plate Thomas.

Liberty's Will Shepard cut the lead in half at 2-1 with a monster shot to left center field.  He took the first pitch and sent a 400 foot drive that was half way up the trees that line the outfield wall.

Liberty took the 3-2 lead in the bottom of the fifth as it plated two runs. Dalton Britt led the inning off with a single.  The next batter, Andrew Yacyk followed with a 330 foot homerun that cleared the wall in left field.

The Flames tacked a couple runs on the board in the bottom of the second to push their lead to 5-2.  Yacyk led the inning off with a single Dylan Allen sacrificed Yacyk to second with a bunt.  Two batters later, Ashton Perritt scored Yacyk with a double to left field.  Two batters later, Ryan Seiz brought Perritt in with a single to right field.

Winthrop moved four runners across to take the 6-5 lead in the top of the eighth.  TJ Olesczuk got the inning started with a single and moved up to third on a double down the left field line by Cody Dolan.  Olesczuk came home on a sacrifice fly by Thomas.  A single by Menken put runners at the corners.  Clay Altman ripped a double to deep left center to score Dolan.  Kaczka reached on a fielder's choice and move Altman to third as the Flames gunned down Menken at the plate.  Kyle Edwards reached on an error to score Altman on a grounder to short.  Michael Patrick was then hit by a pitch to load the bases and then Daniels was hit by a pitch to score Kaczka.

Coach Riginos was extremely excited at his team's performance;  "This was a huge win over a great team that has been highly ranked this season.  We overcame some adversity with the two home runs, but we battled all day and came up with timely hitting and good defense.  We now have a great opportunity tomorrow to reach our goal of getting to the NCAA tournament. "

Winthrop will now play the winner of the No. 3 Campbell/No. 4 High Point game in tomorrow's championship game at 2:00pm.