ALLIANCE, Ohio – No. 2 seed Mount Union defeated No. 5 seed Heidelberg, 5-4, in the semifinals of the Ohio Athletic Conference Baseball Tournament Thursday at Rafeld-Rogers Field.

The Purple Raiders, now 28-11 overall, advance to the championship round for the first time since 2017 and will take on top-seeded and No. 4 ranked Marietta in a best of three-game series. The first two games of the series are Friday, May 21 starting at 1 p.m. at Pioneer Park in Marietta. If a game three is needed, it will Saturday at 1 p.m. also in Marietta.

The game was tied at 4-4 in the bottom of the eighth inning when Brian Livolsi (McMurray, Pa. / Peters Township) hustled for a two-out double then came home with the go ahead run on an RBI single from Walker Marlowe (Berlin Center / Western Reserve). Livolsi had a pair of doubles and finished with three hits.

Jeremy Sassano (Fairview Park / Fairview) shut the door in the ninth and did not allow a hit over the final 1.2 innings to pick up the win on the mound and move to 4-0 on the season.

Zane Mirgon took the loss out of the pen as Ryan Hackworth started for Heidelberg (24-16-1) and struck out eight over six innings.

Heidelberg started the game with a 2-0 lead in the first inning on a double Marc Ochoa.

Mount Union came right back and tied the game in the bottom of the second as Corey White (Louisville) singled and Livolsi doubled then both came home on a single from Coleman Stauffer (Boardman).

The Raiders took their first lead in the fifth as Zack Mazza (Flint, Mich. / Powers Catholic) had an RBI single to make it 3-2.

The Berg tied it in the seventh on Zach Doran double but Mount Union came back and retook the lead 4-3 on a Mazza homer in the bottom half of the inning.

Heidelberg came back again with a home run of its own from Eric DeVore to tie the game in the top of eighth.

Thomas Gallant (Pataskala / Watkins Memorial) started for the Raiders went 7.1 innings, allowed four runs and struck out six.