ATLANTA - Reigning Sun Belt Conference Player of the Week Bailee Wilson launched a two-out, three-run home run in the top of the seventh inning to help Georgia Southern claim a 5-4 victory over host Georgia State on Thursday evening at Bob Heck Field in Atlanta.

The win stretches the current win streak to four for Georgia Southern (15-25, 8-14 SBC), while Georgia State falls to 15-26 overall and 3-16 in the Sun Belt. The two teams will conclude the 2021 regular season with a 1 p.m. doubleheader on Friday.

Georgia State pushed across an unearned run in the bottom of the second with a pair of hits and an error, then Daisy Hess stretched that lead for the home team to 2-0 with a solo home run in the bottom of the fourth. 

The Eagles got one back in the top of the fifth as Jess Mazur led off the inning with a solo home run to left. Allyssah Mullis then tied the game in the top of the sixth with a sacrifice fly, scoring pinch runner Alisha House from third.

Georgia State retook the lead in the bottom of the sixth with a solo home run by Bailee Richardson.

The Eagles were down to their final out in the top of the seventh when Mekhia Freeman and Faith Shirley reached on back-to-back singles. Both runners moved up on wild pitches, then Wilson deposited a full-count pitch over the left field wall for her fifth home run of the year.

Georgia State pulled to within one run in the bottom of the seventh on an RBI single by Hess. but Kyleigh Richardson (4-5) was able to retire pitcher Sophie Mooney on a groundout to short to close out the win.

Richardson hurled two innings of two-hit, one-run ball to notch the victory, walking one. Mooney (6-11) took the loss for the the Panthers, giving up seven hits and five runs - four earned - in seven innings, walking two and striking out six.

"We said to the team to start with that we know we just came off of an incredible sweep against South Alabama," Georgia Southern Head Softball Coach Kim Dean said. "But we can't have any lapses here. Kudos to Georgia State, and we know we will have two more tough games tomorrow. But it's a credit to how tough the Sun Belt really is from top to bottom."

"We've been on the flip side of that so often," Coach Dean said of the seventh-inning rally. "But the way our team has carried themselves, and allowed the lessons from earlier in the year not to define us, but to fuel us. That's starting to show itself. Other teams have to know that you've got to get 21 outs on us, and that we're gonna keep passing the bat for as long as we can. It always takes the entire team. It's exciting. They're really starting to click. And they're really starting to understand how hard it is to win, but how fun it is to win."