FOUR CORNERS, Fla. – The Concordia Golden Bears baseball team (4-6) nearly erased a nine-run deficit, but saw their comeback bid fall just short in an 11-7 loss to #30 Ashland (7-4) on Friday morning to conclude play in the RussMatt Central Florida Invitational.
 
Trailing 9-0 after six innings and 11-2 heading to the last half of the eighth, the Golden Bears clawed their way back into the contest as they brought the tying run to the plate in the bottom of the ninth, but they were unable to claim a dramatic come-from-behind victory as they dropped to 3-3 on the trip.
 
It was Concordia's bench that sparked the comeback effort as the CSP reserves scored two in the seventh, three in the eighth and two in the ninth to put the pressure on the Eagles. Lamine Diaby-Gassama played a big role in that effort as he reached safely in all three trips, picking up his first two career hits, including a double, while drawing a walk, driving in a run and scoring two more.
 
Mitch Klass and Cody Maier added extra base hits of their own off the bench as Klass doubled and scored a run while Maier doubled and drove one in. Mason Nadolney and Justin McGuigan each finished with a hit, an RBI and a run in their reserve appearances as Bryce Nelson also added a hit and a run batted in. Jack Young also chipped in a pair of singles in the contest.
 
Christian Morel (0-1) took the loss in his first start of the season as he worked the first 1.1 innings before giving way to the bullpen. Luke DeGrammont followed with 4.2 solid innings of relief, limiting the Eagles to two runs on five hits while walking none and striking out four. Michael Voss added 2.0 innings of relief, chipping in three strikeouts, while Matt Sherman struck out three in a scoreless ninth in his season debut.
 
Jacob Harsany (1-1) grabbed the win for Ashland as he allowed just one earned run on five hits while striking out 10 in the win. Tim Zeller came on to get the final out of the game to nail down the save.
 
The Eagles put the Golden Bears in an early hole as they scored one in the first and six in the seventh before tacking on another in the fourth and another in the sixth to bring the run-rule within sight.
 
Concordia showed some serious resilience, however, as they kept the game alive with two runs in the bottom of the seventh, highlighted by a Nelson RBI single, before Ashland answered with two in the top half of the eighth.
 
The Golden Bears were back at it in their half of the frame as a Diaby-Gassama run-scoring double to deep right helped spark a three-run outburst. Nadolney cut it to five with a line drive sacrifice fly right at the left fielder in the ninth before Maier short-hopped the right field fence to close the gap to four. A McGuigan single and Diaby-Gassama walk loaded the bases to bring the tying run to the plate. Zeller managed to hold off CSP with a strikeout to end the game.
 
CSP is scheduled to return to play next Wednesday with a non-conference doubleheader with Minnesota Duluth at Minnetonka High School before opening up conference play the following weekend at home against Bemidji State.