HATTIESBURG, Miss. - Top seed St. Thomas (55-7) defeated no. 3 seed IU Southeast (41-13) 6-1 at the Hattiesburg Bracket of the NAIA National Championship Opening Round on Tuesday night.

With the win, the Bobcats advanced to the Championship Game of the Hattiesburg Bracket while also breaking the school record (54, 1998) for most wins in a season.

Starting pitcher Chris Rodriguez (11-1) allowed one run on six hits while striking out eight to earn the victory. Reliever Alex Sarmiento pitched two scoreless innings with three strikeouts to close out the win.

STU started the scoring in the second inning as Chris Allende scored on a Grenadier error to take a 1-0 lead. IUSE responsed with their lone run of the game in the second inning to tie the game against the Bobcats.

St. Thomas was able to score a run in the fourth inning on a Nick Izquierdo RBI single to center as Oscar Rodriguez scored giving the Bobcats the lead and they didn't look back as the offense scored runs in each of the innings from the fifth through the seventh to get ahead 6-1.

In the fifth inning, Chirs Garabedien brought in Jackie Urbaez on a ground ball to short to get the lead to 3-1 before Randy Oliva singled to right field which brought in Allende once again.

In the sixth inning once again the Bobcats scored as Urbaez singled in Delgado to open the lead up to 5-1. The final St. Thomas run of the evening came in the seventh inning, as Marrero singled to bring in Daniel Lowry.

Shortstop Erick Delgado went 3-for-4 to lead the Bobcats offensively.

The third ranked St. Thomas University Bobcats await the winner of Wednesday's first game between IU Southeast/ William Carey or LSU-Shreveport as St. Thomas is now one win away from advancing to the NAIA World Series for the first time since 2015.

-30-