The College of Central Florida Patriots (39-4, 12-3) rallied late to defeat Mid-Florida Conference rival Santa Fe Saints (35-4, 11-4) 7-6 on Wednesday afternoon in Gainesville.

The state ranked #1 Saints and the #2 Patriots are the top two ranked NJCAA teams in Florida and are both ranked in the top five nationally.
Santa Fe would get on the board first when Grant Gallagher tripled home two runs off of CF starter, Andrew Herrmann in the bottom of the second inning. Corey Filley would then single home Gallagher to make it 3-0 Saints. SF wasn't done as they got run scoring base hits from Zeth Rodriguez and Drake Harman in the third. After the shaky start Herrmann would settle down to throw seven innings, allowing five runs on seven hits and striking out three.

CF finally scored runs off of Saints start Tobin Moran when Edwin Toribio launched his sixteenth home run of the season, a two run shot. The game would remain 5-2 until the eighth inning when Carson Bayne and Kareh Valentin singled home runs to make it a 5-4 game headed to the ninth inning. In the top of the ninth inning Mike Guilliams led off with a single followed by a John Marant double. After an intentional walk to Toribio, a Bayne strikeout, and a passed ball to tie the game, up stepped current NJCAA Player of the Week, Juan Correa, who preceded to single on a chopper to shortstop scoring Toribio and pinch runner Ian Moore to give CF a 7-5 lead.

Cam Schuelke (5-1) relieved Herrmann in the eighth inning to earn the win. The only blemish off of Schuelke was a solo home run in the ninth inning by Jacob Guthrie.

With the win the Pats take a one game lead over the Saints in the MFC. The same two teams will meet in Ocala on Friday to complete a suspended game from March 25th in which Santa Fe is leading 8-6 in the fifth inning. Immediately following that game the teams will play the regularly scheduled game. Play starts at 1:00 PM.