Any doubts about the importance of Wednesday afternoon's game for Santa Fe Community College were erased when Saints ace Andy Mee took the mound with a 10-10 tie in the ninth inning, his first relief appearance of the year.
Mee sat down Lake City Community College (19-13) in order on the strength of two strikeouts, and then the player who had started off the Saints' scoring ended it.
Shortstop Tyler Cook's walk-off single capped a huge victory that saw SFCC (19-12, 5-3 Mid-Florida Conference) overcome a 10-4 deficit and put the brakes on a two-game skid.
"We know how that feels, so it was nice to give that back to somebody," SFCC coach Johnny Wiggs said.
The Saints had built a 9-1 lead against St. Johns River Community College on Sunday but ended up falling to the Vikings 12-10.
Cook led off the game with the first home run of his college career, and designated hitter Trace Venegas added a shot of his own two batters later to give the Saints a quick 2-0 lead.
But on a gusty day with the wind blowing out hard to left-center field, the Saints' pitching struggled, with starter Brandon Neff giving up four runs in the third inning and lefty reliever Ryan Wolfe doing the same in the fifth.
The Timberwolves tacked on two more runs in the top of the sixth inning to build their lead to six runs.
"Today was a difficult day to be a pitcher," Wiggs said. "Balls were moving that normally wouldn't move, your breaking ball is breaking more, and if a ball started two feet high, it bounced."
Leftfielder Nathan Hartman sparked the comeback, leading off the bottom of the sixth with SFCC's third homerun of the day. The Saints added two more runs that inning, followed by three more in the seventh to even the score.
"You knew today you were never out of the game," Wiggs said. "You knew you always had a chance for a big inning with these kind of conditions."
Reliever Shane McIntyre combined with Mee for three scoreless innings, and Hartman led off the bottom of the ninth inning with a scorching double, setting up Cook's game-winning hit.
The Saints pounded out 20 hits on a day that clearly favored the hitters.
Cook led the way at the plate, going 5 for 6 with two RBIs and scoring three runs. Eugene Garnett was 3 for 5 with three RBIs. Venegas and Mee each contributed two RBIs.
"That was a big win," Wiggs said. "I hope we look back at the end of the year and say this was a win that really propelled us or a win that really carried us on to the conference championship."
While it's still early in the conference schedule, a third straight loss would have put SFCC at the .500 mark and could have led to an even larger swoon, something the Saints could not afford in the competitive Mid-Florida Conference.
The win reinforced the team's confidence, Cook said.
"It's gonna propel us all the way," he said. "We'll build on this win and keep building off of it."
