CLAREMONT, Calif. - Bryce Didrickson was 3-for-5 with a homer and three RBI as the third-seeded Claremont-Mudd-Scripps baseball team rallied from a 7-0 deficit to take a 12-10 win over second-seeded Pomona-Pitzer in the opening round of the SCIAC Tournament on Thursday. 

With the win, CMS improves to 31-10 on the year and advances to face La Verne in a winner's bracket game at La Verne tomorrow at 3 p.m. Pomona-Pitzer falls to 27-14 and will face Redlands in an elimination game on Friday. The 31 wins leaves the Stags one shy of tying the program record for wins in a season, set last year, with the 1972 team (30-9) the only other team to reach 30. 

CMS scored 12 straight runs to go ahead 12-7 in the eighth, but had to hold on as the Sagehens scored three times in the bottom of the eighth and then loaded the bases in the bottom of the ninth with a chance to tie it with a single or win it with an extra-base hit. Hamilton Finefrock, though, came through with the big strikeout to get the save and send CMS through to the winner's bracket. 

Cooper Berry's grand slam keyed a six-run fourth inning for the Sagehens that gave them a 7-0 lead, but the Stags came right back in the fifth with six runs, all with two outs, to get back within 7-6. Didrickson's RBI single with two outs plated Nate Seluga, who led off with a walk, and after a Carter Bennett single loaded the bases, the Sagehens walked five batters in a row, with Blaise Heher, Rider Gordon, Keegan Cabrera, Seluga and Dillon Martin each getting RBI. 

Didrickson then homered to straightaway center field in the sixth to tie the score at 7-7. Bennett walked and stole second, and came home on an RBI single from Max Pemberton to put CMS ahead to stay. 

Didrickson added an RBI single in the seventh to give CMS an insurance run, and the Stags tacked on three more in the eighth to go ahead 12-7, with Martin hitting a sacrifice fly and Andrew Mazzone adding a two-run, two-out single. 

In the ninth, the Sagehens led off with a walk, before Finefrock got the next two outs on a groundout and a strikeout. A walk and a hit by pitch loaded the bases, but Finefrock closed the door with his second strikeout to seal it. 

CMS walked 13 times in the game and was hit by a pitch two other times, with Seluga drawing four walks. Mazzone and Gordon were each 2-for-4 with two walks for the Stags. 

The Stags will meet top-seeded La Verne at 3 p.m. tomorrow for the right to advance through to the championship round.