By: Dustin Kent - JCFloridan.com

The Chipola Indians moved back into a tie atop the Panhandle Conference standings Wednesday night thanks to a decisive 12-3 victory over the Gulf Coast State Commodores in Panama City.

Chipola had fallen out of first after a 13-9 loss to Northwest Florida State last week, but the Indians took care of business in their first of two head-to-head battles with the Commodores this week, jumping out to a 7-0 lead and cruising to the finish line.

Michael Mader started on the mound for the Indians and earned his second conference win, going 5 1/3 innings and surrendering three earned runs on five hits and four walks with one strikeout, while West Convington took the loss after giving up five earned runs on 10 hits in 2 1/3.

Josh Merrigan got Chipola on the board first with an RBI single to score Danny Mars in the top of the first inning, with the Indians tacking on three more in the third thanks to a pair of RBI triples by Mars and Merrigan and an RBI double by Ian Rice.

Trailing 7-0 through five innings, the Commodores finally got something going in the bottom of the sixth against Mader, with Tevin Johnson drawing a walk and Dalton Dugger singling to set up a two-RBI double by Max Bartlett.

Two batters later, Jo Jo Durden came on to replace Mader and gave up an RBI sacrifice fly by Dalton Kelley to score Bartlett to make it 7-3.

But Durden was able to limit the damage to that, getting Ryan Koziol to ground out to shortstop to end the inning and strand two Commodore base-runners.

Durden stranded two more in the bottom of the eighth, striking out Kelley swinging and getting Lamboy to pop out to leave Woody Edwards and Dugger at first and second.

Chipola started to pull away in the top of the ninth, pushing five insurance runs across thanks to RBI singles by Rice, Jacky Miles, Jr., Jason Sierra, and Taylor Mauck, and an RBI sacrifice fly by Cody Lanford to score Chase Scott.

Rice led the Indians with four hits to go with three runs and two RBI, with Merrigan going 3-for-5 with two runs and two RBI, and Santa 3-for-6 with three runs.

Scott, Sierra, and Mars all had two hits for the Indians, while Duggar and Edwards led the Commodores with two hits each.

The teams play again Friday in Marianna at 2 p.m.