LAKELAND, Fla. - No. 4 St. Thomas (45-5, 22-2 The Sun Conference) split a doubleheader Saturday and won the three-game series at no. 3 Southeastern (48-5, 22-2 TSC) to clinch the regular season Sun Conference championship. 

With the win, St. Thomas wins the regular season championship and will be the no. 1 seed in the Sun Conference Championship Tournament to be held May 4-7 at the Ballpark of the Palm Beaches.

The Bobcats won the second game of the doubleheader 13-8 after dropping the first game of 14-9.   STU has now won 19 of its last 20 and 32 of its last 34 contests.

In the rubber match of the three-game series, Jackie Urbaez and Erick Delgado both homered as the Bobcats built an 8-0 lead. The game went into a rain delay in the fifth inning with two outs with STU leading 8-2. Following the delay, St. Thomas held on despite a comeback by the Fire cut STU's lead to 9-7. 

Nelson Mompierre then hit a two-run home run in the top of the eighth to extend the lead to 11-7.  Delgado then hit his second homer of the night in the ninth to punctuate the victory.
 
Miguel Rodriguez provided the Bobcats with a lights out performance out of the bullpen to silence the Fire bats. Rodriguez pitched two innings with two strikeouts before giving the ball to Tyler Morales to finish the series with the win and clinch the regular season Sun Conference title once again for St. Thomas.

In game one of the doubleheader, St. Thomas came up short which snapped a season-high 18-game winning streak. Chris Rodriguez (8-1) was saddled with his first loss of the season in the game, pitching four innings before handing the ball to Jose Pupo.

The Bobcats got on board off the bat of Urbaez, who launched his second home run of the series and his sixth of the season in grand fashion, as Urbaez cleared the bases with a grand slam to give STU a 4-2 lead.

The 4-2 lead was short-lived for St. Thomas as SEU responded with four runs in each of the fourth and fifth innings to put the game out of reach.

On Friday night in game one of the series, the Bobcats defeated the Fire 6-5 to hand SEU its first conference loss of the year. 

Orlando Rodriguez (11-0) won a battle of two of the top arms in the Sun Conference between Rodriguez and Southeastern starter, Jonathan Bermudez (12-1). The game was tightly contested as the two aces matched each other pitch-for-pitch to limit the explosive offenses on either side. Bermudez escaped a bases loaded jam in the first inning before Southeastern was able to get on the board first against Rodriguez with two solo home runs in the bottom half.

Rodriguez pitched into the seventh inning in his 11^th win of the season, as he piled on 11 strikeouts as well, while allowing five earned runs. The Bobcats turned to Alex Sarmiento in the seventh inning with the lead at 6-4, Sarmiento inherited two base-runners on second and third base and allowed one to score but preserved the Bobcats lead at 6-5 while escaping a bases loaded jam. Erne Valdes came into the game in the eighth inning and recorded the last six outs for St. Thomas to earn his eighth save of the season while striking out three.

Offensively, the Bobcats got their scoring started in the second inning off the bat of Delgado  as he launched his sixth home run of the season to tie the game at 2-2. St. Thomas cut the Fire lead to 4-3 in the sixth inning when Sergio Lopez (1-3, RBI) doubled in Elih Marrero. The Bobcats were finally able to claim their first lead in the seventh inning as Urbaez  dug in with runners on first and second. On a 1-2 count, Urbaez was able to drive a slider over the left field fence to put the Bobcats in front for good. 

By winning the three-game series, the Bobcats clinched The Sun Conference championship via the head-to-head tiebreaker with Southeastern as both teams concluded conference play with 22-2 TSC records.

STU will now play four non-conference games in the final week of the regular season before beginning play as the top seed at the Sun Conference Championship Tournament.