MELBOURNE, Florida - The Embry-Riddle baseball team rallied late against Florida Tech on Friday night, but the Panthers were able to hang on for an 8-5 victory in the two teams' Sunshine State Conference series opener. The Eagles (12-13, 2-8 SSC) dropped their eighth straight league game, unable to overcome an early six-run deficit against the Panthers (17-10, 6-4 SSC).

Both offenses tallied 13 hits, but for the Eagles, those came late, while the Panthers did nearly all of their damage in the early innings.

Tyler Stufano (3-3) gave up a leadoff homer to start the second inning before the Panthers added another run later in the frame, taking an early 2-0 lead. However, the Eagles got one right back when Dylan Brazil singled home Jeremy Kennedy-Davis from third in the top of the third.

The bottom of the third inning proved to be Stufano's and the Eagles' undoing as the hosts struck for five runs on five hits, including four straight singles to start the frame and a big triple later in the same inning.

Up 7-1, Florida Tech's starter Mitch Harding kept the Eagles from putting together much of a rally, keeping ERAU off the board from the fourth through the seventh innings, while Stufano and Casey Keller did the same.

In the top of the eighth, the visitors got to a Panther reliever, scoring three runs with RBIs from AJ Marinello and Timo Aracena to trim the deficit to 7-4.

FT got one of those runs back in the home eighth, taking an 8-4 lead into the ninth.

Embry-Riddle rallied again, getting two singles from Alex Britton and Kevin Vittoria to put runners on the corners with one out and Brazil came through again, singling to left to score the fifth ERAU run of the night. Following a strikeout for the second out, Robert Post was hit by a pitch to load the bases and put the potential tying run on base, but a fly otu to right ended the night for the visitors, giving the home team the three-run win.

Brazil was one of five Eagles to collect a pair of hits, finishing 2-for-4 with two RBIs and a run scored.

The Eagles return to Melbourne to take on the Panthers in game two of the weekend series tomorrow at 2 p.m.