CHILLICOTHE, Ohio -- The Midway baseball team opened their run in the River States Conference Baseball Tournament on Thursday (May 4) when they battled Oakland City (Ind.) at VA Memorial Stadium in Chillicothe, Ohio.

With the game tied at six in the bottom of the eighth, Nick Eastham stepped to the dish and hit a two-run home run that would eventually lift his team to an 8-6 victory.

With the win, Midway improves to 27-20 overall while they advance on in the winner's bracket, where they'll take on IU Kokomo (Ind.) at 3 p.m. ET on Friday (May 5). The Cougars will be facing elimination after suffering a 5-4 defeat to IU Southeast (Ind.) on Thursday.

The Mighty Oaks (30-20) got off to a quick start scoring one in the second and two more in the fourth to claim a 3-0 lead after four complete innings.

After being held in check for the first four frames, the Eagles got their offense going in a big way in the bottom of the fifth, where they scored six runs on six hits.

Ayden Sciandra (Jacksonville, Fla.) got the Eagles on the board with an RBI double off the wall in right, while Grant Hotchkiss (Richmond, Ky.) tied the game with a two-run double to straightaway center field.

With the game now tied and runners on first and second, Ryan Davis stepped to the dish and sent the Midway dugout into a frenzy. The graduate student from Paris, Ky. hit a no-doubter over the right field fence for his seventh homer of the season, giving Midway a 6-3 lead.

Midway's lead was short lived after the Mighty Oaks immediately answered with three runs on four hits in the top of the sixth to tie the game at six runs apiece.

After being held scoreless in the sixth and seventh innings, the Eagles went back to work in the bottom of the eighth. Shane Taylor (Morehead, Ky.) opened the inning with a single before Nick Eastham stepped to the plate and put a charge into a 1-0 pitch.

A junior from Morehead, Ky., Eastham went the opposite way for his second home run of the season – a two-run home run that cleared the right field fence and gave Midway an 8-6 lead.

Jesse Komoroski (Memphis, Tenn.) then entered the game to begin the ninth, looking to close the door. The sophomore allowed a pair to get in scoring position before getting a groundout to the shortstop that clinched the win and Komoroski's 10th save.

Luke Richardson (Franklin, Ky.) picked up the win in relief after pitching a scoreless eighth inning. Meanwhile, Cameron Head (Salem, Ky.) was the first out of the bullpen and pitched 1.1 scoreless innings.

Offensively, Hotchkiss led the way, going 3-for-4 with an RBI and a run, while Taylor and Eastham each recorded two hits in the win.

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