LAKELAND, Fla. – The USCB baseball team survived a wild series opener Friday at Southeastern, holding on for an 11-10 victory to snap the Fire's 13-game winning streak and extend the Sand Sharks' lead atop the Sun Conference standings to four games. 

Thomas Estopare went 4-for-4 with three runs and two RBIs and Brandon Joyce was 3-for-6 with four RBIs and a run scored to power the fifth-ranked Sand Sharks in the opener of the three-game series. 

The Sand Sharks (34-6, 16-3 TSC) grabbed a big early lead with four runs in the third inning, as Kal Davis knocked in his team-high 56th run with a single, Joyce added a two-run single, and Josh Reinhart tacked on a sacrifice fly. 

After the Fire plated a run in the bottom of the inning, USCB came back with three in the fourth when Estopare blasted his fourth homer of the season and Joyce doubled home a run and came around to score on a throwing error. Max Balter's RBI single in the fifth made it 8-1 before the Fire came raging back. 

Southeastern chipped away with two in the fifth and four in the sixth – aided by a pair of USCB errors – then claimed a 9-8 lead with a pair of runs in the seventh. The Sand Sharks tied it in the eighth, as Estopare led off the frame with a double and scored on Joyce's RBI single, and regained the lead in the ninth when McLean Hartz scored on an error and Estopare added an RBI single. 

The Fire cut it to a one-run game in the bottom of the inning and had the bases loaded with no outs, but Blake Drew induced a double-play ball from Marcus Guzman and Josiel Colon bounced into a fielder's choice to end the threat. 

The series concludes with a doubleheader beginning at noon Saturday.