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BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- The Samford University baseball team rapped eight hits, but only scored three runs Saturday as the Bulldogs left 10 runners on base in a 5-3 loss to the Mercer Bears in the second game of a key Southern Conference series being held at Joe Lee Griffin Field.
 
"We had plenty of opportunities today, but we let a couple of their bullpen guys come in and we never really adjusted to them," said Samford head coach Casey Dunn. "We had nine or 10 pop-up outs and I don't think our guys took a very good approach at the plate today."
 
With the loss, Samford (15-12, 2-3 SoCon) had its three-game winning streak snapped and moved to 10-6 when playing at home this season.
 
Mercer (17-11, 3-2 SoCon) rallied for two runs in the top of the ninth inning to garner Saturday's late victory. With their win, the Bears evened the series at 1-1. On Friday night, the Bulldogs posted an 11-5 triumph to open the three-game set.
 
Sunday's rubber game of the series is slated to begin at 1 p.m. (CDT).
 
With the score knotted at 3-3, Mercer's Matt Meeder led off the ninth inning and reached on a throwing error from Samford shortstop Danny Rodriguez. Rodriguez's miscue proved to be the Bulldog senior's first error of the 2016 campaign. He has played dominant defense all season long and tallied 121-consecutive clean chances to open the year before making his first error.
 
"Obviously, errors are going to happen, but that was definitely not an ideal time for it," Dunn said. "I thought Mercer did a good job of capitalizing on the situation and their guy was able to take advantage of a 2-0 fastball. We failed to get ahead of a hitter and bad things tend to happen when that's the case."
 
Following Meeder's at-bat, Mercer's Trey Truitt singled to left field and both runners were later advanced to second and third with a sacrifice bunt from Ryan Hagan.
 
Samford intentionally walked Kyle Lewis, the SoCon's Preseason Player of the Year, to load the bases with one out. Next up, the Bulldogs' sophomore pitcher Tristan Widra, who didn't allow a single earned run in four complete innings Saturday, forced Ben Upton into a pop up to third base.
 
With two outs and the bases loaded, the Bears' Hunter Bening placed a line-drive single into the gap in right-center field and Meeder and Truitt came in to score the decisive runs.
 
Samford's Widra (2-3) was issued the tough-luck loss Saturday, while Mercer's Conard Broom (3-0) pitched the final 2.2 innings of the game and earned the win.
 
The Bulldogs jumped out to an early 3-0 lead in game two of the series by scoring a pair of runs in the first inning, and then one more in the third. Saturday's loss actually proved to be Samford's first this season in which the Bulldogs scored in the first inning. They are now 9-1 when scoring in the first stanza.
 
Samford's T.J. Dixon opened the bottom half of the first with a triple down the right-field line. In the next at-bat, Dixon scored from third base as junior Hunter Swilling ripped a double into left-center field. Dixon continued his stellar batting here in SoCon play as he finished 3-for-5 at the plate Saturday. Swilling also turned in a solid outing by going 2-for-4 with a pair of runs scored and an RBI.
 
Swilling doubled and scored Samford's third run in the third inning on a neat double play to left field from Austin Edens. Along with Dixon, Swilling and Edens, the Bulldogs' Rodriguez and Richard Greene also tallied base hits Saturday.
 
Samford true freshman Connor Radcliff started the game against Mercer and hurled four solid innings of baseball. The Bulldogs' talented hometown native of Birmingham, ran into some trouble in the fourth inning and finished by allowed two earned runs on three hits.
 
Offensively for Mercer, Truitt turned in a 2-for-3 outing, but Bening came up with the key single and tallied a 2-for-5 performance in the win.
 
This weekend's three-game set will conclude Sunday at 2 p.m. (CDT) as the Bulldogs and Bears square off in the third-and-final matchup of the SoCon series being held at Joe Lee Griffin Field on the campus of Samford University.
 
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