It all came together for the Brazos Valley Bombers at the perfect time.

The Bombers used a gutsy pitching performance by winless Josh Dean to eke out a 3-2 victory over the Victoria Generals on Thursday night at Brazos Valley Bank Ballpark to earn the Texas Collegiate League's last playoff spot.

The Bombers had to win back-to-back games to edge the two-time defending champions for the TCL's overall wild-card berth. The late-season heroics earned the Bombers a spot in the best-of-3 divisional series against the East Texas Pump Jacks who won both halves of the wooden-bat league. Game 1 will be at 7:05 p.m. Friday at BV Bank Ballpark with fans admitted free. The game also will be broadcast on KZNE (1150 AM).

The Bombers gave the fans a reason to return with timely hitting, solid defense and a seven-inning stint by Dean, who came in with an 0-3 record and a 5.40 earned run average.

"We had to have him go deep because we were obviously short in the bullpen," said BV coach Brent Alumbaugh, who has lost several of the team's players because they had to head back to school. "He wasn't sharp at times, but he battled and got some double-play balls mixed in there to help."

The biggest came to end the seventh.

The Generals threatened to break a 2-2 tie with runners on second and third via a walk, single and sacrifice bunt. That forced the Bombers to play the infield in. Leadoff hitter Jake Runte grounded a ball to the left of shortstop Christian Soberanes who wheeled and retired the batter. The runner at third, John Longoria, broke late and didn't have a chance to score. The Generals, though, were in trouble because the runner at second broke toward third thinking Longoria would go. That allowed the Bombers to retire the runner before he could get back to second.

The opportunistic Bombers promptly scored the game-winner.

Victoria starting pitcher Blake Denman, who had allowed the game-tying run in the sixth, walked No. 9 hitting Kevin Wirth on four pitches. Wirth was hitting .186.

Left-handed reliever Jordan Harrison retired the next two batters, but left-handed hitting Trey Porras bounced a single to right field on an 0-1 pitch.

Porras took a nasty fastball on the outside corner, then guessed curve.

"They've been following a pattern on me," Porras said. "The first pitch is off-speed or if they get ahead, then they go off-speed. I was kind of sitting on it. I don't pull many balls, and I didn't square up on it the way I wanted to, but I got enough of it."

The Bombers' other clutch hit came from in the sixth from Brennyn Smith who was 3 for 3. Soberanes was hit with a pitch. Smith blasted a double to right-center field easily scoring Soberanes who was running on the pitch.

Smith, who was hitting .215 two weeks ago, finished the regular season with a flourish to end at .257 with a team-leading 40 RBIs. First baseman Jacob House (.345 BA in 17 games) from Texas A&M, Soberanes (.317 BA in 25 games) and Porras who led the TCL in hitting at .344, also came up big in making sure the Bombers made the playoffs for the fifth straight season.

"This has really been a test," said Porras, who played in 48 games for the Bombers after playing in only 37 in his junior season at New Mexico. "Now I know what the pros go through. This is hard playing 60 games, holy cow. I'm a big Astros' fan and I can remember [Craig] Biggio and [Jeff] Bagwell always saying it's a grind, it's a grind. And that's exactly what I tried to do, grind out at-bats."

The Bombers did a good job manufacturing runs with the batters who eventually scored reaching on two walks and a hit batsman.

The Bombers' defense didn't give a thing back as Soberanes had five assists to lead a solid effort. He also grabbed a grounder in the sixth with the infield playing close so the Generals couldn't score after Ryan Dalton had tripled with one out.

Bombers' third baseman Scott Arthur, who played several positions, started an inning-ending double play in the second after two batters reached.

The game didn't have the start of a low-scoring game. The Bombers were poised to have a big first inning, but needed a borderline walk to Smith with the bases loaded to score one. BV loaded the bases with a walk, hit by pitch and infield singled. But House struck out and Soberanes popped up to center field.

The Generals took the lead with back-to-back two-out hits in the third. Freddy Villalobos tied it with a hard-hit grounder that took a wicked hop over Soberanes for a single. Dalton followed with booming double to plate Villalobos who was running with the pitch.

Bombers 3, Generals 2

Victoria 002 000 000 -- 2 7 1

BV Bombers 100 001 10x -- 3 6 1

Blake Denman, Jordan Harrison (7), Covey Morrow (8) and Clay Cunningham. Josh Dean, Logan Burch (8), Garrett Shepperd (9) and John Cannon. W -- Dean, 1-3. L -- Harrison, 4-2. S -- Shepperd (11).