Hutchinson, Kan. – With a ticket to the KCAC tournament championship game on the line, the No. 2 seeded Tabor College baseball team let a six-run lead slip away before falling to No. seeded Sterling College by the score of 8-6.

The Bluejays will advance to the losers half of the bracket in the double elimination tournament where they will take on third-seeded Kansas Wesleyan tonight at 7 p.m. The Bluejays defeated Kansas Wesleyan in game two of the tournament by the score of 16-8.

The Bluejays got things rolling early as junior Koby Temple drove in the first run of the game to ignite a three-run inning first inning for Tabor. Senior Adam McCormick drove in the second run of the game on an RBI single before junior Paul Sciacca knocked in the final run of the inning on a sacrifice fly to give the Bluejays a 3-0 lead.

Tabor would add to its lead in the bottom of the fourth, thanks to back-to-back errors by the Warriors with two outs that extended the inning. With two on, KCAC baseball player of the year, junior Art Corona drove a ball over the right field fence to extend the Bluejays lead to 6-0.

Sterling would begin to chip away at the Bluejays lead with a run in the top of the fifth before rallying to tie the score at six-all thanks to a five-run top of the sixth inning. The big inning by the Warriors was aided by two Bluejays errors as three of the five runs were unearned. The Warriors would take their first lead of the game on a two-out RBI single in the top of the seventh to make the score 7-6. Sterling would add an insurance run in the top of the ninth before closing out the Bluejays in the bottom of the inning to pick-up the win.

Corona led Tabor at the plate going 2-4 with a game-high three RBIs and two runs scored, while Temple went 3-5 from the plate, with an RBI and a run scored. Senior Matt Cardona added two hits in the game, while McCormick and Sciacca chipped in with an RBI apiece.

Junior Brian Kowal got the start and allowed four earned runs on 12 hits while striking out two in seven innings of work. Fellow junior Matt Lambert came on in relief in the eighth to pitch the final two innings of play allowing one run on four hits.

Both teams committed two costly errors apiece in the game with the Warriors outhitting the Bluejays 16-11 in.