Georgia Southern had another ninth inning comeback for the ages, but the magic didn’t last quite long enough.

The Eagles erased a 4-3 ninth inning deficit when Ryan Cleveland hammered a three-run home run to center. But South Alabama evened the score with back-to-back homers to lead off the bottom of the ninth and the Jaguars walked off on a Brendan Donovan single in the tenth to claim a 7-6 victory and the Sun Belt Conference championship.

In a near duplication of the Eagles’ quarterfinal comeback against UL Lafayette in the quarterfinals, Georgia Southern was held in check and trailed for most of the game before catching fire in its last at-bat of regulation play.

And just like Friday’s game, the Eagles couldn’t put the game away in the bottom of the ninth.

Evan Challenger entered the game in the seventh inning and came up big with two innings of near-perfect relief, but surrendered homers to Dylan Hardy and Eddie Paparella to lead off the ninth and even up the score.

Anthony Paesano got the Eagles through the ninth and Georgia Southern entered extra innings for the second time in three games.

The Eagles threatened in the top of the 10th, but Evan McDonald was cut down at the plate on an attempted safety squeeze.

In the bottom of the tenth, GS reliever Adam Kelly allowed a pair of hits to put runners on the corners with one out. Jacob Condra-Bogan relieved Kelly and ran Donovan to a two-strike count, but an outside fastball was lofted into left, easily clearing the drawn in outfield and plating the tournament-winning run.

With the tournament win, South Alabama laid claim to the Sun Belt’s automatic entry into the NCAA regional round. Georgia Southern moved to 39-21 on the season after the loss and is unlikely to receive an at-large selection to the regional round.

A full recap and reactions from players and coaches will be available in Tuesday’s edition of the Statesboro Herald.