A win or a University of Rio Grande loss is all Campbellsville University needed to win the Mid-South Conference baseball regular season Sunday. The Tigers got both to win a MSC season or tournament title for the sixth straight season. It is the fourth time in six years, CU has won the regular season.

"This is special to me. I know how hard it is to win one or even two in a row," CU head coach Beauford Sanders said. "It's so stinkin hard to find a group of guys to stick together, and when you can find a way to improvise to get through things and do it together, it's so, so special.

"We didn't out-talent a lot of people. We had to find ways to win games, and we did more times than we didn't ... We've shifted our lineup around this year more than we have in recent history. The last part of the season we've just been scratching and climbing, and scratching and climbing."

Campbellsville carried a 3-1 lead into Sunday's continued game at Georgetown College. After the host team evened the score in the bottom of the third, Campbellsville pushed two runs across in the top of the seventh for a 5-3 win. An hour earlier, St. Catharine College beat Rio Grande, 5-3, in Springfield, Ky., clinching the Tigers' MSC title.

" We knew we need to win and we needed to take care of it ourselves. We didn't know that (St. Catharine) already beat Rio," CU head coach Beauford Sanders said. "I wanted to win it on the field anyway. I didn't want to back in."

When play resumed Sunday, Georgetown had one out and Tyler Hatfield on third base after he led off the third inning with a double Saturday play was stopped. Curtis Payne, who started the game for CU Saturday, pitched the third inning Sunday, giving up a game-tying, two-run home run to Tanner Baldwin on the third pitch of the day. After working his way out of the inning with a 4-6-3 double play two batters later, Payne was done for the day.

" I didn't have any misgivings about starting him. It just didn't work out. His ball was up a little bit when he was throwing today and we had to get him out of there in a hurry," Sanders said of Payne.

Spencer Frantz came in to finish the game. Through four innings, he struck out one and allowed three hits as he improved to 2-1 in relief.

In the seventh, Alex Ponich doubled to left with one out to score Zac Townsend and Jameel Ziadeh and regain Campbellsville's lead. It was Ponich's 13 double of the season. Frantz, allowed a one-out single to Georgetown in the bottom of the seventh, but then turned a 1-6-3 double play to get the win.

"Spencer really did a great job. To finish the game with him turning the double play was awesome," Sanders said. "But the difference in the game was we stayed mentally focused. After that home run, we didn't get down. We just kept playing today instead of getting frustrated and being mentally weak. We stayed in the game an kept competing, and that was the difference."

Jason McGinnis took the loss for Georgetown as he continued his pitching performance Sunday, lasting 6 1/3 innings before giving up the lead in the seventh. He allowed four earned runs and one unearned run off seven hits and a walk. He struck out five.

The orange and black took a 1-0 lead in the first inning Saturday with an RBI from Tyler Fisher, but Campbellsville gained the lead in the top of the third with three runs.

Ziadeh and Tyler Craig led off the inning with back-to-back singles and later scored on a wild throw by third baseman Hatfield that put Michael Caleb on base. Brian Chase singled in Caleb in the next at bat.

Campbellsville (35-18, 22-5 MSC) will host Pikeville College in the first round of the MSC Tournament at Tiger Field in Campbellsville, April 30-May 1. The Tigers and Bears will play a single game Friday and a doubleheader Saturday, if necessary, in the best of three series. The winner will advance to the next round of the MSC Tournament May 6-9 at Tiger Field.