Taking their cue from High Point's graduation ceremony earlier on Saturday, the Panthers made some history of their own with a hard fought 2-1 victory over Big South Conference leaders Birmingham-Southern at Erath Field.

The win snapped HPU's eight-game losing streak to the league's other Panthers and also marked the first High Point win over Birmingham in the program's Division I history. With the victory, High Point moves into a tie with BSC at 11-5 in league play just a half game behind Winthrop (12-5). HPU is now 23-24 overall while Birmingham slips to 26-19 on the season.

"Today's victory was a total team effort," said HPU head coach Sal Bando, Jr. "It took every guy on this team doing their job for us to get this win. This is the kind of overall performance that we need down the stretch to accomplish the goals we've set for this team. We beat a very good team today and hopefully we can build on this for tomorrow."

Starting pitchers Matt Christie (HPU) and Brandon Hynick (BSC) treated the fans to a real pitching duel as they both kept the opponent's offenses in check for much of the day. Christie allowed just five hits and one earned run in 6.2 innings of work while Hynick (4-5), who took the loss, went the distance and surrendered just two runs on seven hits with seven strikeouts.

High Point grabbed the early lead with a run in the first. Jeff Cowan scored on an RBI-double by J. Williams to put HPU up 1-0. Cowan, who extended his consecutive games on-base streak to 23 games, was hit by a pitch to start the game and moved to second on a sacrifice bunt by Chris Norwood before scoring on Williams hit.

HPU would advance just one runner past first base over the next five innings against Hynick. Christie, who worked out of a couple jams, kept Birmingham-Southern off the board until the seventh thanks to eight runners left on base.

After getting the first two batters out to open the seventh, Christie hit Ronny Woods with a pitch. Woods moved to third on a single by Mark Goforth putting runners on the corners with two outs. Chris Marks relieved Christie and surrendered an RBI single to Brint Hardy allowing BSC to know the score at 1-1. Marks induced a flyout to end the frame.

High Point rallied in the bottom of the inning as Alfie Wheeler drew a one-out walk and moved to second on a wild pitch. Cowan followed with his run-scoring single to push HPU back in front for good. After Marks (6-4) stranded a BSC runner at third in the eighth, Tom Boleska picked up his second save of the year with a perfect ninth.

Six different High Point players recorded hits in the game with freshman catcher Billy Aguiar leading the way with a 2-for-3 performance in his first game back following a finger injury. Norwood extended his current hit streak to nine games with a single in the fifth. Goforth and Hardy each tallied two-hit outings to pace the BSC offense on Saturday.

The battle of the Panthers continues on Sunday at 1 p.m. as HPU sophomore standout Eammon Portice takes the hill versus BSC senior David Horne.