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ABILENE, Texas - Mike Vass drove in five runs and Kurt Yacko shut the door in relief for the third straight day as Chapman won a slugfest with Trinity Friday at Walt Driggers Field. The win puts Chapman in position to play for the NCAA Division III West Region Baseball title Saturday, which would be the program’s fourth straight.

Vass knocked in a 3-run home run in the third, which was part of a 5-run inning for the Panthers. The Tigers 3-1 before Chapman took a 6-3 lead, however, Trinity struck back with four runs in the bottom of third highlighted by Dylan Early’s fourth homer of the tournament, a 3-run shot off Jordan Sigman and the Tigers re-gained the lead 7-6.

The Panthers responded with three runs in the top half of the fourth inning with four runs including a two-run double from Vass and two-run homer from Stuart Hyman. After Chapman took the lead once again at 9-7, neither team scored until the ninth inning.

Drew Bignall’s only blemish in relief for Trinity came when he gave up a solo shot to Chapman catcher Matt Pearson. With a three-run lead and Yacko already in the ball game, Trinity rallied to score two runs.

Pennington and Early each drove in runs for the Tigers with singles, however, neither run was charged to Yacko because of an early inning error. Both runs came with two outs and Chapman should have been out of the inning without further damage.

Yacko picked up his second save of the tournament and has three appearances in each of Chapman’s three wins. The junior all-American picked up a win in the extra-inning contest over McMurry Thursday and picked up a save against La Verne Wednesday. So far, Yacko has eight strikeouts and hasn’t allowed an earned run in 8.2 innings of work in relief.

Sigman picked up the win in 6.2 innings of work, he allowed eight hits and gave up seven runs (all earned), walked three and struck out none.

Trinity’s Early drove in four runs on the day and has a tournament-high 10 RBI through three games. Tiger starter Ryan Poffenroth lasted just 3.1 innings and gave up eight runs. Britton Horn and Bignall tried to keep the Tigers within striking distance combining the last 5.2 innings to allow only two more Chapman runs.

However, Trinity faces elimination at 7 p.m. Friday when it plays the winner of the La Verne vs. Cal State-East bay game Friday afternoon.

Chapman improved to 38-3 on the year and Trinity fell to 34-14 on the season.