Southampton Academy’s baseball team rebounded from losses to Blessed Sacrament-Huguenot and Isle of Wight Academy to beat Brunswick Academy twice in three days last week to finish the regular season with a 9-8 record.

The Raiders beat the Vikings 9-8 on Wednesday and 6-3 on Friday to finish with a 7-7 record in the Virginia Commonwealth Conference and fourth place in the eight-team conference.

The two wins give the Raiders a home game in the first round of the VCC tournament at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 4. The Raiders will host Tidewater Academy, which finished its season strong by beating the No. 2 and No. 3 seeds in the VCC on back-to-back days.

Southampton Academy will host the VCC semifinal games at 2:30 p.m. Friday, May 7, and the conference championship game on Saturday, May 8.

On Wednesday, host Brunswick took a 7-0 lead with three runs in the third inning and four runs in the fourth. The Raiders bounced back with three runs in the top of the fifth on a double by Blake Drewry, a triple by Cameron Ray, and a single by Wesley Barnes to close the gap to 7-3.

The Raiders took the lead in the top of the sixth when they exploded for six more runs. Jacob Rose led off the inning with a double to left field. He advanced to third base when the left fielder misplayed the ball. Carson Camp knocked in Rose with a single to left center.

The next four batters walked to score two more runs. Barnes beat out a potential double play, scoring the Matt Nixon with the tying run. Garrett Smith knocked in the last two runs with a single between the first and second basemen.

Brunswick responded with one run in the bottom of the sixth to close the gap to 9-8. Brunswick had the tying run on second base with two outs in the seventh when Ray struck out the final batter to end the game.

On Friday, SA hosted Brunswick on the Raiders’ Senior Day.

Seniors Ray, Rose, Ryan Dunn and scorekeeper Rachel Baugham participated in their final regular-season home game.

SA jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the bottom of the first inning. Barnes and Smith scored on a double by Camp, who then scored the third run on a single by Will Edwards.

Nixon pitched four strong innings for the Raiders. He gave up two unearned runs in the second inning on a walk, a hit batter, and an infield error with two outs.

Brunswick tied the game at 3-3 in the top of the fourth on a home run by Tyler Parrish. This was the only hit that Nixon gave up in four innings. Smith came in to relieve Nixon in the fifth inning and shut out the Vikings over the last three innings.

The Raiders took the lead in the fifth when Smith led off the inning with a walk. Rose sacrificed him to second base before Will Edwards scored Smith with a single to right field. The Raiders added two more runs in the bottom of the sixth.