CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa --- When Brandon Pond came off the mound after retiring the side in order in the 8th, he looked at associate head coach Travis Beazley and nodded his head. 

Beazley nodded back and smiled. He was sending Pond back out in the 9th to finish the job. 

Pond did finish the job with a 1-2-3 inning in the 9th sealing the 8-3 victory over East Texas Baptist Saturday and putting the University of Lynchburg baseball team one win away from the championship series at the NCAA Division III baseball national championship. 

Pond struck out nine batters in his first-collegiate complete game and allowed three runs on four hits.  

All three runs came across in the 1st inning, and Pond was dialed in after the early scoring outburst from the Tigers. The graduate student gave a warning sign to the Tigers when he recorded the final out of the 1st. The putaway fastball that he blew by the batter made an echoing boom through the stadium as it hit Holden Fiedler's mitt. 

Thanks to a pickoff and a double-play relay from Avery Neaves in left field, Pond faced the minimum from innings 2-9. 

Pond threw his first pitches of the evening defending a 5-0 lead. 

The game was pushed back nearly two hours after the previous three games of the day ran long. Despite the delay, the Hornets jumped out to a fast start.

Brandon Garcia and Benton Jones walked, and after Neaves reached on a fielder's choice, he stole second putting on pressure with runners on second and third. 

Eric Hiett started the scoring with a double down the left-field line. Jackson Harding tallied an RBI with a bases-loaded walk, and two more runs came in after Fiedler put a ball in play, and the Tigers made an error. 

Garcia, Jones, and Hiett all walked multiple times, and Hiett secured another RBI with a sacrifice fly in the 8th. 

Garica and Jones also were both hit by pitches as the Tigers' staff gave up 10 walks and six HPBs. It is the fifth time Lynchburg has been hit by five or more pitches in a game on the season. 

The Hornets are one win away from the championship series in Cedar Rapids. They get a day off Sunday and will face the winner of Salisbury and East Texas Baptist Monday at 2:15 p.m. EST.