CHARLESTON, S.C. - Drew Ellis slammed a long home run to break a tie in the sixth inning, and Citadel pitching blanked Georgia Southern over the final eight frames in a 4-3 victory over the Eagles on Tuesday evening at Riley Park.

The Bulldogs won their sixth in a row to improve to 11-7 while completing a sweep of the home-and-home series against their former Southern Conference rival. The winning streak is the longest since a 10-game run from April 12-27, 2013. Georgia Southern fell to 12-10.

The Bulldogs battled back from an early three-run deficit to create a 3-3 tie in the fifth on consecutive two-out singles by Johnathan Stokes, Austin Mapes and Connor Walsh, with Walsh driving home his team-leading 19th run of the year.

Ellis led off the following inning and crushed a 2-0 pitch well over the wall in right for his third home run of the season and first since hitting two on opening weekend against Air Force. Jacob Watcher struck out three in 1 1/3 innings and Kevin Connell got the final two outs of the eighth on strikeouts.

Closer Skylar Hunter made things interesting in the ninth, allowing a leadoff double to Chase Griffin, who moved to third on a ground out by Hunter Thomas. Hunter was able to strand  Griffin right there by fanning Brandon Sharpe and Cal Baker to secure his eighth save and move into a tie for the national lead in that category.

Hunter also increased his career save total to 36 and is just one shy of tying Elon's Thomas Girdwood for the most in SoCon history. Hunter has saves in five of The Citadel's six victories during its current winning streak.

Ross White, the second of five Bulldog pitchers, allowed one hit in a scoreless sixth inning and earned the win, moving to 2-0 on the year. Avery Fagan allowed the Ellis homer and dropped to 0-2.

Austin Mason started for The Citadel and fell behind 3-0 just three batters into the game. He walked Kody Adams and Logan Baldwin followed with a double before Aaron Mizell homered over the batter's eye in straightaway center.

Mason did not allow a hit after the Mizell round tripper and faced the minimum 12 batters over his final four innings. The junior right-hander walked three and struck out three in the no-decision.

The Bulldogs struck back with two in the bottom of the first on RBI singles by Mapes and Stephen Windham, and the game stayed 3-2 until The Citadel scored its single runs in the fifth and sixth.

The Citadel continues its 14-game homestand when it hosts Winthrop on Wednesday at 5 p.m. before taking on UMBC in a three-game series beginning Friday. All four of those games can be seen free of charge on the SoCon Digital Network.