Lynchburg, Va. -- Nine years and 327 games later, University of Lynchburg's baseball team is back on top of the Old Dominion Athletic Conference.

The Hornets defeated Shenandoah University, 9-8 in walk-off fashion, on Fox Field Saturday afternoon to claim Lynchburg's ninth title in program history. 

Trailing by two runs in the bottom of the ninth, PJ Alvanos and Avery Combs stepped up when their names were called. After sophomore Avery Neaves led off the inning with a hit by a pitch, Alvanos slugged an 0-1 fastball over the right-field wall to knot the game at 8-8. Freshman Gavin Collins followed the homer with a single up the middle and was bunted to second by Carrson Atkins, bringing Combs to the plate as a pinch hitter. The hometown kid came through with a single to right-center to score Collins and send the Lynchburg dugout into a frenzy.

With the win, the Hornets receive the ODAC's automatic qualifier bid to the NCAA Division III tournament and tied the program record with 34 wins. The Hornets will learn their NCAA placement when the bracket is announced at 11:59 p.m. EDT Sunday. Lynchburg's destination will be one of eight pre-determined sites each of which will play host to a six-team regional. It will be Lynchburg's 10th NCAA tournament appearance.

Game 3 began like each of the preceding games with early runs. Shenandoah's Frankie Ritter led off the game with a single and came around to score on a Pearce Bucher RBI groundout to put SU up 1-0. In the bottom half, Lynchburg responded with a manufactured run as a Kinston Carson RBI groundout plated Cameron Lane to tie the game. 

Shenandoah responded with three more runs in the top of the second. Lynchburg retaliated once more in the bottom half with three runs of its own -- Lane hit a two-run triple to right, and then Garrett Jackson drove in Lane with a single to knot the contest at 4-4.

After a Shenandoah homer from Matt Moon in the third, the SU bullpen held the Lynchburg offense off the board for four straight innings, and in the sixth and seventh, the visiting team added on with a lone run in each frame to take an 8-4 lead.

Lynchburg chipped away at the deficit in the seventh, as Carson scored on a wild pitch and Atkins singled home a run to make it 8-6, setting up the wild ninth-inning comeback. 

Grayson Thurman earned the win in relief for Lynchburg. The senior allowed just one earned run on five hits and struck out seven. Thurman struck out four of his seven batters he faced in shutout eighth and ninth innings to help set up the ninth-inning heroics.

"Grit," head coach Lucas Jones said. "The one word to describe this team. They never gave up at any point, and it showed."

Alvanos won the tournament's most outstanding player honor -- the Lynchburg second baseman hit .452 with two doubles, a triple, a homer, and 16 RBI over eight tournament ballgames -- and Carson, Neaves, and Zack Potts joined him on the all-tournament team. Natty Soloman and Ray Tricarico from Eastern Mennonite; Jeffrey Snider and Brett Tharp from Bridgewater; and Colby Martin, Haden Madagen and Frankie Ritter from Shenandoah also landed on the tournament honor roll.

The championship is Lynchburg's first since the 2012 season when the Hornets defeated Bridgewater, 2-1, at Lynchburg City Stadium. It is the Hornets ninth conference title and their 17th appearance in the championship. It was the eighth for Lynchburg's athletics programs in 2021, a new school record for ODAC titles in one academic year.

Visit Lynchburg athletics' home online, LynchburgSports.com, anytime for up-to-the-minute news on all Hornets sports and coverage from LHSN. Click here to sign up for email and text alerts from Lynchburg athletics.

Give Lynchburg Sports a like on Facebook, and follow @LynchburgSports on Instagram.

--LYN--