CHILLICOTHE, Ohio -- No. 2 seed Point Park University had its comeback fall short in a 7-6 loss to No. 5 University of Rio Grande (Ohio) in the first round of the River States Conference Baseball Championship on Thursday from VA Memorial Stadium. The Pioneers (32-15) fell behind, 6-0, after the first two innings and had their late-inning scoring run out of steam in the ninth.

Point Park scored all of its runs in the fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth innings to get within 7-6. An early outburst of five runs in the second and later Daniel Rutherford's solo homer in the seventh -- the latter of which made the score 7-4 -- proved to be the two big differences in the game. 

Rio Grande (25-26) moves on in the winner's bracket. Point Park will face No. 6 seed Oakland City (30-19) in the loser's bracket on Friday at 11:00 a.m. That will be the only game of the day for the Pioneers win or lose. The championship continues through Sunday at VA Memorial. 

Already leading 2-0, Rio Grande had a couple of big swings in the second inning. The first was Angel de la Cruz's two-run double. A.J. Thomas followed right after with a two-run homer, and all of a sudden, the score was 6-0. 

Rio Grande sat on that lead until Rutherford's homer that provided the eventual winning run in the seventh. 

In between, the Pioneers pecked away at the deficit. Jared Campbell came up with a two-run triple in the fifth to make the score 6-2. An inning later, Justin Oakley had an RBI triple to make it 6-3.

Rutherford's solo shot came the next half inning. The Pioneers got that run back in the last of the seventh on Isaac Santana's base hit. In the eighth, a solo homer by Carlos Burroughs and Michali Brito's sacrifice fly pulled the Pioneers within 7-6.

Burroughs had a two-out hit in the bottom of the seventh to keep Point Park's hopes alive. He stole second to bring the tying run into scoring position. But Lane Mettler closed out his two-inning relief outing holding onto the lead to get the save. He was the fourth of four Rio Grande pitchers, who pieced together the 9.0 innings.

Brady Choban started and pitched 2.0 innings for the RedStorm. Reid Schultz was credited with the winning pitching the next 3.1 innings and allowing three runs on seven hits. Trey White gave up another three runs over 1.2 innings before turning things over to Mettler. 

Point Park totaled 13 hits with all nine starters getting at least one hit apiece. Omar Morillo, Jordon Campbell, Carlos Martinez and Carlos Burroughs collected two hits each. 

Pioneers' starter Easton Klein pitched 5.1 innings giving up five earned runs. Jose Moreno came in for the next three outs before Sebastian Rodriguez took over for the final 2.2 scoreless.