WARRENSBURG, Mo. (March 21, 2017) -- Travis Stroup's three-run walk-off home run in the bottom of the 13th inning capped a furious rally and sent ninth-ranked Central Missouri to a 12-9 win over Lindenwood on Tuesday night at Crane Stadium/Tompkins Field.

Stroup's opposite field laser with two outs in the 13th capped a rally that saw the Mules (18-5, 10-3 MIAA) come back after trailing 6-0 in the third, 8-1 in the fifth, and 9-6 with two outs in the ninth inning. Down to their final out in the ninth, the Mules had runners at second and third when Collin Nevil blasted a towering three-run shot to right center to tie the game and send it to extra innings.

Lindenwood (15-10, 8-5 MIAA) jumped out to a big lead, scoring six times in the third inning. The Lions had four hits in the inning and were aided by three straight bases-loaded walks that forced in runs. The damage could have been worse, but Corey Simpson got Drew Quinones to ground out with the bases still loaded to end the inning.

The Mules got on the board in the home half of that inning. Jackson Schnurbusch led off with a triple and scored on Blake Wilfong's sacrifice fly to make it 6-1.

Wes Degener hit a two-run home run in the fifth to help the Lions extend their lead to 8-1. The Mules came right back with four runs in the bottom of the inning to pull within 8-5. Justin Graff-Rowe had an RBI single to plate Schnurbusch. Wilfong scored on a wild pitch to make it 8-3 and two more runs came across when Nevil's fly ball to deep right center was dropped for what would have been the third out of the inning. Graff-Rowe singled home another run in the sixth, plating Michael Bainbridge to pull the Mules within 8-6.

Nick Paulda singled home a run with two outs in the top of the ninth to extend the Lindenwood lead to 9-6. Wilfong led off the bottom of the ninth with a walk and Graff-Rowe was hit by a pitch to put two runners on with no outs. An infield groundout put the runners at second and third and a strikeout for the second out of the inning brought Nevil to plate for his game-tying blast that came on a 1-1 pitch.

Albertus Barber (1-0) earned his first win of the season after coming out of the bullpen with two runners on and no outs in the top of the 13th and keeping the Lions scoreless. Andy Muehlberger tossed three innings of perfect relief as well.

Brendan Feldmann (2-1) took the loss for Lindenwood after allowing four runs on six hits in 4.2 innings of relief.

Graff-Rowe had four hits on the day and drove in a pair while Stroup and Nevil each had three runs batted in and matched each other with their seventh home runs of the season. Schnurbusch finished the night 3-for-5 at the plate with a pair of runs scored.

The Mules return to action this weekend with a three-game series in Maryville against Northwest Missouri. The series gets underway on Friday afternoon at 3 p.m.