COLUMBUS, Ga. – The road to the Peach Belt Conference (PBC) Tournament Championship came to an abrupt halt Tuesday for Georgia College baseball (35-17), as the Bobcats lost 6-2 to regular-season champion Francis Marion University (37-13) on day two of tournament action. 

The East No. 1-seed Patriots advance to face the loser of today's Augusta State University/UNC Pembroke contest, while the West No. 2-seed Bobcats are eliminated from the tournament.

FMU dominated the middle innings of the game, putting up a pair in the fourth and one more in the fifth to take a 1-1 game to 4-1 in a hurry.

The Bobcats were handcuffed by All-PBC starter Jeffrey Stoner (8-0), going seven innings, scattering five hits and two runs. Patrick Mincey added the save with the final two innings of work. 

GC second baseman Luke McKay (Augusta, Kan.) was one of the few Bobcats to solve the riddle, getting involved in both runs. In the third with GC down 1-0, he led off with a double down the leftfield line, scoring on an infield single by Josh Young (Lake Havasu City, Ariz.).

McKay supplied his second home run of the season in the seventh, cutting a 4-1 lead to 4-2 before the Patriots tacked on two insurance runs in the ninth. 

Senior Eric Pettepher (Gordon, Ga.) took the loss (5-4) in relief, going just one inning and allowing two runs. McKay was the lone multi-hit performer, going 2-for-4 with two runs and an RBI on the home run.

The Bobcats now await the at-large announcements for the NCAA Regional Tournament to begin later this month. GC was ranked fifth in the most recent region poll. 

The Georgia College Department of Athletics, back-to-back winners of the PBC Commissioner's Cup, sponsors 10 varsity athletic programs at the NCAA Division II level. As a Division II program, Bobcat Athletics prides itself on balancing the life of the student-athlete, evidenced by the teams' multiple appearances in post-season competition as well as documented academic success and community-service involvement. Sign up at www.twitter.com/BobcatSports and www.facebook.com/gcbobcats for up-to-the-minute reports, and visit www.GCBobcats.com for more information, and to nominate your favorite former Bobcats and Colonials to the GC Athletics Hall of Fame.