SCORES: Earlham 9, Manchester 8 (10 inn.)
LOCATION: Richmond, Indiana – Sadler Stadium
RECORDS: Earlham 23-18 / Manchester 19-22

RICHMOND, Indiana – Earlham College Baseball punched its ticket to the Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference Baseball Tournament's championship weekend with a 9-8, 10-inning, walk-off win over Manchester University, Saturday afternoon at Sadler Stadium.

The Quakers (23-18) will be one of five teams battling for the HCAC title at next weekend's championship round, which will be hosted by Transylvania University starting Thursday, May 20. Game times and matchups will be announced by the HCAC once all five participants have been determined.

Cameron McCabe's 10th-inning grounder back to Manchester pitcher CJ Williams pushed the game-winning run across for the Quakers. With Devin Basley on second and Marc Gendreau on first, Williams caught McCabe's ground ball, then spun and threw to second in an attempt to get Gendreau. However his throw was well over the head of Spartan second baseman Zach White and sailed into center field, allowing Basley to cross and lift Earlham to the victory.

Earlham had trailed by as much as 7-2 at the midway point of the sixth inning, after Manchester scored twice in the top of the frame.

The Quakers narrowed the gap to 7-3 on Cameron Wissel's solo home run to right field in the home half of the sixth, but after a scoreless seventh inning the Spartans widened their lead to 8-3 in the top of the eighth on Joe Henschel's RBI double to right center.

Earlham erased the deficit completely in the bottom of the eighth with five runs, including a double from Gendreau and a single by McCabe that each plated a run. Danny Dopp, a day removed from setting the Earlham career runs batted in record, added to the tally with a two-run home run to center field, also scoring McCabe to knot the game at 8-8.

Neither team was able to score an additional run in the ninth, sending the game into extra innings. The Spartans stranded a runner at second in the top of the 10th, and one-out singles by Basley and Gendreau in the bottom of the frame set the table for McCabe.

The contest opened with Manchester plating a pair of runs in the top of the first inning, with Earlham responding in the second with Isaiah Shake's two-run blast to left field. The Spartans took a 5-2 lead in the fourth with three runs scored on four hits, with back-to-back RBI singles from Brett Kron and Paul Barrow accounting for two of the runs.

Earlham reliever Jacob Renner came on with two outs in the top of the 10th and struck out Henschel to get the Quakers out of the inning, and he was credited with the win. Williams was charged with the loss for his one-and-a-third innings of work on the mound for the Spartans.

McCabe finished the day 4-for-6 with a run and an RBI, while Wissel was 3-for-5 with a pair of runs scored and an RBI. Dopp, Shake, and Gendreau each had two hits, with Dopp and Shake each recording a pair of runs batted in as well.