The Centre baseball team battled early on, but a big seventh inning by No. 4 Birmingham-Southern led to a 10-0 loss for the Colonels in a Southern Athletic Association Tournament first round game on Friday in Birmingham, Ala.

The game remained scoreless for the first four innings, with Centre's Rob Caudill (Danville, Ky.) and the Panthers' Ryan Gaines both in command on the mound. Birmingham-Southern eventually got to Caudill for a run in the fifth inning on a Brandon Marino RBI single, then added another run in the sixth when Jacob Mayfield led off with a walk, followed by a Zach Wingate double and an RBI groundout.

Though the Colonels held tough through six innings with a Birmingham-Southern team ranked in the top 10 nationally, the Panthers broke the game open in the seventh with eight runs on seven hits while taking advantage of two Centre errors. 

Gaines took the win after going seven scoreless innings on the mound, holding Centre to just three hits on the day. Greyson Evans (Kernersville, N.C.), Trevor Brewer (Bowling Green, Ky.), and Zach Montgomery (Louisville, Ky.) were the three Colonels to hit safely on the day.

Centre falls to 7-27 on the year with the loss, while Birmingham-Southern improves to 31-7-1. With Berry defeating Oglethorpe 10-3 in Friday's first game in Birmingham, Berry and Birmingham-Southern will face off Saturday at 11:30 CDT, while Centre and Oglethorpe will meet in an elimination game at 3 p.m.