Salt Lake Community College’s baseball team pulled off a comeback for the ages Wednesday afternoon to advance at the Junior College World Series in Grand Junction, Colorado.
After spotting Florence-Darlington Tech 10 runs in the first inning, the Bruins rallied back several times at Suplizio Field and won the game 17-16 to move into the tournament’s Final Four.
After already one of the craziest baseball games you will ever see to that point, SLCC’s Avery Doezie — a Cottonwood High product — hit a two-run home run with two outs in the bottom of the eighth inning and Darius Henderson shut the door on the No. 6 seeded Stingers in the ninth.
Eighth-seeded SLCC will play again Thursday at 2 p.m. for a chance to advance to the championship round.
After Flo-Dar took an 11-1 lead in the top of the third inning, SLCC answered with eight runs in its half of the inning to get back in it.
Hudson Manwaring, a Skyline High product, hit a two-run homer and a three-run double in the uprising.
However, Flo-Dar stretched its lead to 15-9 with four runs on four hits and a walk in the fourth inning.
But Manwaring wasn’t finished. He hit another two-run homer to pull the Bruins within three, 15-12.
Salt Lake, which pounded out 20 hits in the game, tied it up in the sixth inning with three runs. Chandler Reber’s two-run double and Jalen Seward’s sacrifice fly RBI knotted the score.
Florence-Darlington took its 16-15 lead in the top of the seventh on a solo home run, but Easton Davies buckled down after that and held the Stingers scoreless the remainder of the seventh and the entire eighth to set up Doezie’s big blast.