AMERICUS, Ga. – Young Harris College banged out 14 hits as the Mountain Lions claimed a 7-5 Peach Belt Conference baseball victory over Georgia Southwestern State University Sunday (Feb. 15) afternoon at Hurricane Stadium.

The Mountain Lions took two of three games from the Hurricanes to improve to 5-5 overall and to 2-1 in the league while Georgia Southwestern State fell to 4-4 and 1-2. Young Harris continues its road trip Wednesday (Feb. 18) for a 4 p.m. contest against Tusculum College in Greeneville, Tenn.

Young Harris took a 3-0 lead after the first two innings. Brett Westmoreland, who led the Mountain Lions with three hits, singled home a run in the first and Triston Smith added a RBI ground out in the second. The Mountain Lions added another run that scored on a wild pitch from Lance Shelton (1-1).

Georgia Southwestern got a run back in the third before the Mountain Lions added two more runs in the fourth on Zach Odom's single up the middle to open a 5-1 lead.  

The Hurricanes got runs in fifth and seventh innings to close within 5-3, but the Mountain Lions added single runs in the eighth and ninth innings.  Georgia Southwestern got two runs in the bottom of the ninth to get within 7-5 on Dakota Long's single, but Cole Amtmann earned his second save of the season as he got the final two outs to preserve the win for reliever Dylan Gibeau (1-1).

"It was a good team win today," said YHC head coach Travis Huffman. "The offense did a good job getting us a lead early and scoring when we needed to late in the game. Our pitching and defense kept them out of the big inning which kept us in control of the game."

Blake Suggs, Troy Kizer, Spencer Thomas and Jimmy Pinakidis had two hits each for the Mountain Lions.