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Longwood baseball kept fighting until the bitter end, but Winthrop narrowly took down the Lancers (23-31, 11-16 Big South) 7-6 on Saturday afternoon to wrap up the regular season.

The Lancers outhit their opponents, but one big inning by Winthrop (27-26, 15-12 Big South) coupled with costly mistakes proved to be the difference in the one run game.

How it happened

The Lancers outhit Winthrop for a second straight game, but once again, it was a tight contest. All three games in the series were decided by one run.

Gregory Ryan, Jr. put Longwood on the board with an RBI single in the first inning for an early 1-0 lead. He finished the season with 63 RBI, which represented the fourth most in a single season in team history.

However, Winthrop answered and took advantage of a Lancer error to plate two in the second. While Longwood tied the game on a Winthrop error in the bottom of the second, the Lancers never led from that point on.

The Eagles seemingly broke the game open with a five run fifth inning. Winthrop used two Lancer errors in the half to score three unearned runs.

Longwood clawed and battled back into the game though. Justin Looney cranked a two-run double down the line to cut the lead to three in the fifth, and Luis DeLeon doubled home two more runs in the sixth to trim the lead to 7-6.

From that point on though, Winthrop closer Zan Rose kept the Lancers at bay. He struck out seven in 3.2 innings of work to earn his sixth save of the year. Nate Butcher (1-0) earned the win for Winthrop as the pitcher of record when the Eagles took the lead.

Logan Berrier (2-6) took a tough loss after two strong innings. He gave up one hit in the top of the fifth before exiting, but that proved to be the go-ahead run on a home run by Jonathan Strauss two batters later.

The Lancers put the tying run on base in both the seventh and ninth innings, but Rose dodged away from the timely hit.

More about this year’s Longwood baseball team

Longwood closes the season with 23 wins, the most since the 2016 season.

The Lancers also won 11 conference games, the most since the 2016 season.

Longwood swept the season series against Richmond this year for the first time in program history, and the team went 8-5 against teams from the Commonwealth. That represented the most raw wins against in-state opponents since 2011, and it was the best winning percentage against in-state foes since the team went 7-4 against Commonwealth opponents in 2016.

Ryan had his 18th multi-hit game as a Lancer, the second most on the team.

Both Eliot Dix and Hayden Harris ended the season reaching base safely in the team’s final 16 games.

The Lancers won two of their final three series in conference play after losing their last six series in conference play a season ago.