Pinch-hitter Gabriel Morin hammered a dramatic game-winning, two-run, ninth-inning homer on Friday afternoon, as the University of Texas Permian Basin opened a four-game Lone Star Conference series with the University of Arkansas Fort Smith.
 
Morin's walk-off blast gave the Falcons a 10-8 win in a game that they had trailed by five runs in the early going--only to receive solid relief pitching in the middle and late innings and get key extra-base hits while staging their comeback.
 
With the score tied at 8-8 with one out in in the bottom of the ninth, the Falcons' Mario Pena slapped a single into center field and then gave way to pinch runner Christian Rodriguez. Morin then entered the game as a pinch hitter and promptly smacked a pitch over the left field fence, sending Rodriquez home with the winning run before stepping on home plate, himself, amid a mob of admiring teammates.
 
The two teams will play again at 1 p.m. in the first game of seven-inning doubleheader at Roden Field.
 
The dramatic ending for the Falcons was not indicative of the game's auspicious beginning.
 
The Falcons spotted UAFS five runs in the top of the first inning, but relief pitcher Brayden Williamson—brought in to face a bases-loaded situation—retired two of the next three Lion batters to quell the threat.
 
The Falcons answered by leading off the bottom of the inning with consecutive doubles by Michael Clapperton and Garret Thornton. Pena's single drove Thornton home to make the score 5-2 in favor of UAFS at the end of the first.
 
After a scoreless top of the second, UT Permian Basin engineered a two-out, five-run explosion to take a 7-5 lead. Another set of consecutive doubles, this time by Devin Ferrari and Pedro Astacio, did most of the damage, plating three Falcons.  Pena's single and a Lion fielding error accounted for the inning's two remaining scores.
 
After the Falcons held the Lions scoreless in the top of the third, Gabriel Melendez and Clapperton used consecutive doubles to give the Falcons an 8-5 lead in the bottom of the inning.
 
UAFS knotted the score at 8-8 with two runs in the fourth and one in the fifth.
 
Solid pitching by the Falcons' Joel Vasquez held the Lions scoreless in the sixth and seventh innings. He struck out two in the sixth inning and survived three consecutive Lion baserunners in the seventh.
 
UT Permian Basin threatened in the bottom of the seventh, loading the bases. But three consecutive fly ball outs ended the inning without a run. Both teams went three-up and three- down in the eighth.
 
Vasquez's solid middle-relief pitching gave way to closer Trey Penny in the top of the ninth, who survived a two-on, two-out situation but retired the Lions without giving up a run.  That  sent the game into the bottom of the inning and set the stage for Morin's dramatic game winning two-run homer.