BREVARD, N.C. | Young Harris College hit three home runs as the Mountain Lions defeated Brevard College 16-9 in a non-conference baseball game Tuesday (April 5) afternoon at Gil Coan Field.

The Mountain Lions improved to 11-23 while the Tornados fell to 12-28. Young Harris returns to action Friday (April 8) when they travel to Dahlonega, Georgia, to open up a three-game Peach Belt Conference against cross-mountain rival University of North Georgia.

Young Harris opened up a 3-0 lead in the top of the first. Zach Wall homered to right field for his sixth long ball of the season. Brett Westmoreland added an RBI double to left-center and Troy Kizer drove home the other run with a single through the left side.

Brevard closed to within 3-2 with runs in both the first and second innings. Young Harris added three runs – two off Nick Sexton's RBI single to right field – in the third inning to take a 6-3 lead. The Tornados got a run in the third and five more in the fourth to take an 8-6 lead.

Young Harris tied the game at 8 in the top of the fifth on Luke Miller's two-run homer – his fourth of 2016 – to left field. Brevard would retake the lead at 9-8 with a run in the bottom half of the inning.

The Mountain Lions took control of the game in the top of the sixth inning as they batted around and scored seven runs to open up a 15-9 advantage. Sexton had a RBI single up the middle while Miller drove in two more on a single to right-center. Wall drove in a run with a single before Zach Beggs put the exclamation point on the rally with a three-run homer to right field. It was Beggs' team-leading seventh home run.

Young Harris added an insurance run in the eighth inning on Brett Westmoreland's single to center field.

The Mountain Lions collected a season-high 18 hits as the top six batters in the lineup had 17 of them. Miller led the way with four hits while Sexton, Wall and Beggs had three hits apiece. Westmoreland and Kizer also had two hits. Miller led Young Harris with 4 RBI while Sexton and Beggs each drove in three. Wall and Westmoreland registered 2 RBI each.

Brent Thomas (1-0) earned the win with two innings of relief while Jack Ganter pitched four scoreless innings of relief to earn his first save of the campaign.