LEBANON, Tenn. – Cumberland scored three times in the ninth inning, two on an error and another on a wild pitch, and Stephen Fischer scattered 11 hits in eight innings of work to get the win in a 4-2 victory over Georgetown College on Saturday in Georgetown, Ky., clinching the best 2-of-3 series for the Phoenix.

With the victory Cumberland (32-25) secures a place in next weekend’s double elimination conference tournament in Bowling Green, Ky.

The Phoenix managed just two hits against Georgetown pitcher Joe Fernandez in the first seven innings before Jarrett Plunkett’s solo homer in the eighth cut the deficit to 2-1.

Hector Viera led off the CU ninth with a single and two batters later Nick McGrew walked. With two outs Tyler Yorko was hit, loading the bases, and Chaz Meadows booted a grounder by Josh Croft, allowing two runners to score. Yorko then came across on a wild pitch, the final run in a wild comeback for the Phoenix.

Fischer kept Cumberland in the contest, stranding the bases loaded in the second and two baserunners in the first and fifth innings. The Tigers posted 11 hits but also left 11 runners on base.

The righthander gave up two runs but did not walk a batter and struck out four, upping his record to 10-2 this season.

Fernandez (4-5) was brilliant the entire game and would have picked up the win and forced a third-and-deciding contest later on Saturday is not for the two-out error in the ninth. He allowed four runs, one earned, on four hits in a complete game, walking five and striking out 14, nine of those from the third to the sixth innings.

Meadows, Jovan Hernandez, Mike Desantis and Kyle Jackson each collected two hits for the Tigers (30-24) and Meadows and Trey Gross each drove in runs in the loss.

Cumberland’s scoring chances were limited against Fernandez thanks to hitting into a pair of doubleplays, one by McGrew and another from Mike Melendez. Yorko collected the team’s first hit of the contest with two outs in the fourth, but Ryan Dickison was gunned down at the plate to end the inning.

Fischer worked around singles by Meadows and Hernandez in the first inning thanks to a pair of groundouts, but Jackson and Damian Rutherford both singled before an RBI base hit by Gross with one out in the second. Meadows delivered a two-out RBI single in the inning as well for a 2-0 Georgetown edge.

Rutherford was stranded at third after a leadoff double in the fourth and two-out singles from Desantis and Jackson were erased by Jalen Poindexter’s groundout to end the inning.

Plunkett’s solo homer to left, his sixth of the year, with one out in the eighth, jump-started the Cumberland offense, setting up the heroics in the ninth.

Georgetown had a chance in the ninth against Joshua Mollett, who walked Meadows and hit Hernandez with two outs, but he earned his fifth save by getting Sam Medina to groundout to first to end the contest.