Mother Nature won Sunday at Coaches Stadium.

After the Eastern baseball team tied Belmont with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning, the game was called after the top of the 11th inning ended, as the last ray of daylight evaporated, while rain fell and lightning struck, ending the series finale in a 5-5 tie.

Eastern was trailing 5-4 entering the bottom of the ninth, but as Mitch Gasbarro took his lead away from second base, with pinch runner Montana Timmons doing the same off of first base, Tyler Schweigert hit the first pitch he saw from Belmont closer Greg Brody to Scott Moses at shortstop.

Gasbarro quickly ran toward third base and got in the line of sight of Moses, who could not come up with grounder, allowing Gasbarro to come around to score and tie the game at five.

Both teams went down quietly in the 10th inning and after Moses popped out to first base to end the top of the 11th, the umpires met, along with Eastern coach Jim Schmitz and Belmont coach Dave Jarvis, and called the game as the skies continued to darken and rain began to pour.

“You could say that we got lucky with the error, but guess what they got three or four runs that were kind of lucky, so battling back and getting the tie is big right there,” Schmitz said.

Nearly three hours worth of weather delays plagued Coaches Stadium, the first coming before starter Joe Greenfield balked in the tying run, as the Panthers were one out away from getting out of the fifth inning, which would have made it in official game.

The 32-minute delay that halted play was because of lightning detected in the area, which by rule means there must be at least a 30-minute wait until play could resume.

Then before Alec Diamond could step into the batter’s box to start the top of the sixth inning, another lightning delay went into effect, but it eventually turned into a rain delay.

“I thought the guys did good – it’s hard to come back, pull the tarp off and do all that work, but they came back and played,” Schmitz said.

Following the two-hour and 20-minute rain delay, Eastern took the lead in the bottom of the seventh inning, as Brant Valach hit a sacrifice-fly to right field that scored Caleb Howell. Then Cameron Berra reached safely on an infield single that brought in Demetre Taylor across home for the 4-2 Eastern advantage.

Unfortunately the Panthers’ bullpen could not hold the lead.

Jake Haberer surrendered the Eastern lead, as he was charged with allowing all three runs in the top of the eighth inning.

Diamond capped off the Belmont rally, hitting a ground ball to Eastern shortstop Dane Sauer, who threw home, but the toss was too late, as Brennan Washington slid in to give the Bruins a 5-4 lead.

“Obviously we didn’t do well in relief that inning,” Schmitz said.

But with the tie, Eastern avoided a loss, which could factor later on during the season, when determining if the Panthers could get themselves into the Ohio Valley Conference Tournament.

Eastern is now 8-12-1 in the OVC, inching its way closer to the sixth spot in the standings, with three conference opponents remaining on the Panthers’ schedule.

“We had a chance for a big sweep, but you have no idea what that tie will do maybe three weeks from now — just in terms of not having that loss — but it’s been weird where that percentage point can get us in,” Schmitz said.

Aldo Soto can be reached at 581-2812 or asoto2@eiu.edu.