MILLIGAN COLLEGE, Tenn. (March 25, 2016) â€" Austin Perry threw his third complete game of the season and the Milligan College baseball team won one and lost one to Reinhardt University Friday afternoon in the first two games of an Appalachian Athletic Conference series. Milligan won game one but lost game two, both decided by scores of 3-2.
 
Milligan moved to 14-14 (7-4 AAC) while Reinhardt moved to 22-11 (6-5 AAC), and the two clubs will decide the series Saturday at 12 p.m.
 
Perry was an out away from his third shutout of the season until a Jeremy Wyatt two-run double off the top of the left-field wall made it 3-2 in the seventh. The Eagles then had the tying run in scoring position but Perry fanned Cameron Eison for his sixth strikeout to end the first game.
 
Perry's winning line of seven innings, six hits, two runs, a walk and six strikeouts featured him striking out the side in the seventh. He went through the first six innings only three over the minimum and only let three runners past first. It was Perry's third complete game of the season and improved him to 5-3.
 
Hunter Suggs, meanwhile, gave Perry a one-run cushion with a sacrifice fly in the third inning, and the Buffs added two more important runs in the bottom of the sixth. Suggs' RBI came with one out and Nelson Schneider on third, scoring him with a fly ball to right field.
 
Thomas Miller then led the sixth-inning rally off with a single through the right side and Nate Clifton, his pinch runner, came around to score on Tanner Peer's pinch-hit single to left. Justin Pearson followed with the Buffs third run, scoring on a shallow single to center by Schneider.
 
Pearson finished the series opener 3-for-3 with a double and a run while Bryan Soto was 2-for-3 with a double.
 
Corey Jenkins made the start on the hill for the Buffs in game two, and whereas Perry was dominant in every inning except the last, Jenkins was dominant in every inning except the first. Jenkins conceded four hits and two runs in the top half of the first but settled down to limit the Eagles to an unearned run over the next four-plus innings, when he exited with two out in the sixth.
 
Milligan trailed game two 3-0 but rallied with two runs in the sixth and threatened in the seventh. Miller had one of the big hits in the sixth, roping a double down the left field line past a diving Wyatt at third base to put runners on second and third, and Andrew Copas then singled in both runs with a single to center, landing in front of a diving Tyus O'Neal.
 
That made it 3-2, and Blake Dutton led off the bottom of the seventh right, singling up the middle to begin a would-be rally. After Braden Jones bunted Schneider, pinch running for Dutton, to second, Suggs drew a walk to put the tying run at second and the winning run at first with one out.
 
Reinhardt reliever Luke Cathcart, however, struck out the last two to end the game.
 
Jenkins went five and two-thirds innings and conceded eight hits, three runs (two earned), two walks, and had two strikeouts. Dustin Cole, whose earned run average was perfect through 14.2 innings entering Friday, maintained a perfect ERA this season by pitching perfect baseball through 1.1 innings of relief.
 
Milligan and Reinhardt will finish the three-game series on Saturday with a single game at 12 p.m. The Buffs then hit the road for No. 20 Bryan College over next weekend but return home for a three-game set with Union College on Saturday-Sunday, April 9-10.