Belton, Texas – The University of Mary Hardin-Baylor baseball team overcame some sloppy fielding and early trouble with walks to post a 12-5 victory over Southwestern University Tuesday night in Belton. The Cru improves to 16-4 on the season with the victory. The loss drops the Pirates to 5-21 on the year.

Southwestern took a 2-0 lead in the top of the first inning without getting a base hit. Three walks, an error and an RBI groundout led to the runs. UMHB answered with four runs in the bottom of the second. Cole Hill blasted a two-run homer to tie the game and a run-scoring error and RBI groundout gave the Cru a 4-2 edge. Southwestern cut it to 4-3 in the top of the third and took a 5-4 lead in the top of the fourth inning. It would stay that way until UMHB erupted for four runs in the bottom of the sixth. Tripp Reeves doubled home three runs and came home to score on Zack Whiddon's RBI single. Dakota Parsons and K.J. Stark had RBI singles in the bottom of the seventh and the Cru added another run on a wild pitch to push it to 11-5. Hill added a sacrifice fly in the bottom of the eighth to provide the final margin.

Tyler Taute earned the win for UMHB to move to 1-0 with three and two-thirds innings of scoreless relief. Dillon O'Dell took the loss for Southwestern to drop to 0-1 on the year. Reeves drove in four run for the Cru and Parsons, Whiddon and Will Stafford had two hits apiece. The Pirates left 15 runners on base in the game, including 11 in the first four innings. UMHB pitchers combined to walk six hitters in the first four innings of the game and the Cru also committed five errors.

UMHB will return to action with a three-game American Southwest Conference series at Louisiana College this weekend. The schedule for that series has changed as the two teams will now play a 4:00 PM doubleheader on Friday before closing out the weekend with a 12:00 PM single game on Saturday in Pineville.