The High Point baseball team won the battle of the Big South's Panthers posting a split in Monday's doubleheader with Birmingham-Southern to take the series victory. HPU rallied for a 9-8 in the opener before falling 11-5 in the nightcap.

With the split, High Point (24-25) and Birmingham-Southern (27-19) both end the weekend with matching 12-6 records in Big South play with just two weekends of league play remaining. The duo is currently tied for second just one game behind league leading Winthrop at 13-5.

In Monday's first game, HPU rallied from a 6-1 deficit with eight runs in the final five innings to earn their sixth consecutive series win while handing BSC its first Big South series loss of the year.

Birmingham-Southern got things rolling early in game one scoring three runs in the first inning off HPU sophomore ace Eammon Portice. BSC starter David Horne worked out of bases-loaded jam in the second before surrendering a run to HPU in the third when Jeff Cowan led off with a double then scored on a Billy Aguiar single.

BSC added three more runs in the fourth stringing a pair of singles and a double together off Portice, who ended his day working just four innings allowing seven hits and six earned runs.

High Point scored three to cut the deficit to 6-4 in the bottom of the fourth as Matt Gantner led off with a single and moved to third on a single by Ryan Laboy. Dustin Holtzman doubled both runners home and then scored himself on a Cowan groundout following a sacrifice bunt by Alfie Wheeler.
 
HPU reliever Bubba O'Donnell gave up back-to-back hits to Casey Bond and Brandon Hynick to start the fifth. Bond moved to third on a botched pickoff play and then scored to put BSC up 7-4 on a sacrifice fly by Matt Barber.

After an uneventful fifth inning, High Point made the comeback complete when Mark Shorey pounded a two-out three-run homer to right to knot the score at seven. Horne got a couple of ground ball putouts before Cowan reached on a fielder's choice and Chris Norwood singled in front of Shorey.

Birmingham regained the lead in the seventh when Hynick led off with a double and moved to third on a ground out. He would score on a passed ball with two outs.

Horne stranded an HPU runner on third in the seventh before handing the game over to reliever Will Stroup in the eighth. Stroup walked Wheeler to open the frame but erased him with a solid pickoff move. He then walked Cowan before getting Norwood to fly out for the second out of the inning. Shorey, the Big South's home run leader, struck again blasting his second consecutive home run over the right field fence to give HPU the 9-8 advantage. The homer was his 18th of the year, marking the second best season total in High Point history.

Tom Boleska worked a perfect ninth to pickup his third save of the year and second in as many games. Brandon Moore (1-1) pitched 1.1 innings to get the win for High Point while Stroup (2-2) suffered the loss. Both teams finished with double digit hits on the day. Shorey led six HPU hitters with two hits each, going 2-for-5 with five RBI. Mark Goforth paced BSC with a 3-for-5 outing.

In the day's second game, Birmingham scored in four of the first five innings and pounded out 15 hits en route to the win.

After scoring three runs in the opening inning, High Point would record just one hit over the next four innings as BSC took advantage of timely hitting and costly HPU miscues to open up a 7-3 lead.

Birmingham-Southern got solo runs in both the first and second inning before exploding for four runs in the third. Goforth led things off with a single then stole second and moved to third on a throwing error by the catcher. Scott Billack grounded a ball to third and Goforth appeared to be caught in a rundown at home but was ruled safe after he collided with an HPU fielder during the pickle.  BSC then got a walk and a pair of hits from Bond and Barber to plate the rest of the runs in the inning.

Barber scored the second of his four runs in the game in the fifth on an RBI single from James Oliver. Bond homered to center off HPU reliever Zach Scott to lead off the seventh and Barber doubled and scored on a RBI groundout to push the BSC lead to 9-3.

High Point tried to comeback in the bottom of the seventh as Wheeler singled and scored on an RBI double from Shorey, who also scored on a single from Justin Pinyan.  However that would mark the end of the HPU scoring for the day.

Birmingham-Southern closed the scoring with a two-run homer from Hynick off HPU reliever RJ Chlebnikow in the ninth for the final margin.

John King (1-0) worked five innings and allowed just four hits and three runs en route to the victory for BSC. David Parker (2-2) was saddled with the loss after going just 4.2 innings, giving up 11 hits and six earned runs. Barber went 4-for-5 with 2 RBI and four runs scored to lead Birmingham at the plate while Laboy posted a 2-for-2 performance as HPU's only player with multiple hits in the game.

High Point will host No. 19 Wake Forest on Wednesday at 3 p.m. in their home finale before visiting Big South Conference leader No. 30 Winthrop for a three-game series starting at 8 p.m. on Friday night in Rock Hill, S.C.