GAINESVILLE — The Gainesville Braves have found their rhythm.
The Braves (3-7) got the right mix of pitching and offense, slugging four home runs and riding the one-hit pitching of Flowery Branch's Zander Seachrist and two relievers to jump out to a 7-1 lead en route to an 11-5 blowout of Brookhaven at Ivey Watson Field on Saturday.
After opening the season with six straight losses, the Braves have quietly won three out of their last four games and are slowly making their way up the Sunbelt Conference standings.
Gainesville stands just a game out of the coveted sixth place playoff spot as the season begins its final half in July.
The Braves learned from their mistake the night before where the Bucks (7-4) battled back late to overcome an eight-run deficit to win 9-8 on Friday at Oglethorpe University.
Brookhaven cracked the ice first in the visitor’s second with two outs as Adam Love and Will Kelley walked. Love then scored on an error at short off a high-hop grounder by Kyle D’Amour.
The Braves answered in the home half, quickly tying the game on Carson Paetow’s second home run of the season. Following a pair of walks to Sam Stewart and Will Mangurian, Carter Lott launched a big fly, three-run homer to give Gainesville a 4-1 lead they would never relinquish.
In the third, the Braves played some classic small ball as Will Mapes led off the inning with a walk, Reed Trimble doubled him to third and both came home on a 2-RBI single by Danny Lynch, who reached base four times in the game.
The Bucks cut into the five-run deficit in the fifth with a double by D’Amour, a single by Cooper Krause, a double by Jeremy Clark and a base-hit by Brody Slaughter.
The Braves countered in the home half of the inning as Lynch drove in his third run of the game and then came home himself on Joe Sutton’s homer.
New Brave LaVonsier Fisher made his debut a memorable one in the sixth, leading off the inning with a high home run to center.
The Bucks threatened to make a repeat of its eight-run comeback in the night, scoring a run and loading the bases, keyed by a Krause RBI single before reliever Tucker Daniel sealed the win with a strikeout.
Three pitchers combined to scatter nine hits in the win, with reliever John Richards (1-0) picking up the “W” firing three middle-innings of clutch relief.
Starter Britt Kelly took the loss for the Bucks.
The Braves face their busiest week of the season with home-and-home ball games beginning Monday against Alpharetta, a doubleheader at home Friday against Waleska, which includes a makeup rainout game, and capping the season series with the Wild Things with a home game on Saturday followed by a big Fourth of July fireworks show after the game.
The Gainesville Braves are made up of players from universities around the country and are a member of the Sunbelt Conference. The league is funded and sponsored by Major League Baseball.
