Belton, Texas – The University of Mary Hardin-Baylor baseball team rallied multiple times, but Texas Lutheran had an answer for every comeback in a 13-11 victory over the Cru Tuesday night in Belton. UMHB falls to 13-13 on the season with its fifth straight loss. TLU improves to 22-9 on the year with the win.
UMHB grabbed a 2-0 lead on Dakota Parsons' two-run home run in the bottom of the first inning. Texas Lutheran put four on the board in the top of the third. Keaton Bohrmann's three-run homer did most of the damage as the Bulldogs scored four unearned runs. The Cru cut it to 4-3 on a Tripp Reeves RBI single in the bottom of the third, but TLU answered with two runs in the top of the fourth despite leaving the bases loaded. Riley Davis led off the bottom of the fourth with a triple and scored on Max Conway's single to cut the gap to 6-4. Austin Frick's two-run double in the top of the fifth stretched the Bulldog lead to 8-4. The Cru pulled to within 8-7 on Davis' three-run triple in the bottom of the fifth. Bohrmann's two-run homer keyed a three-run sixth as Texas Lutheran stretched the lead to 11-7. Zack Whiddon had an RBI double and Chase Burrow added a sacrifice fly in the bottom of seventh pulled UMHB back to within 11-9. A hit batter and a walk with the bases loaded gave the Bulldogs a 13-9 edge in the top of the eighth inning. The Cru used Davis' RBI single and Cole Haag's sacrifice fly to close the gap to 13-11 and brought the potential game-winning run to the plate in the bottom of the ninth, but could not complete the comeback.
Casey Frazier took the loss for UMHB to drop to 1-1 on the year. Dylan Drgac picked up the win for TLU to move to 3-1 and Lincoln Baylor notched his first save of the year for the Bulldogs. Reeves had four hits for UMHB and Davis had three hits and four RBI for the Cru. Will Stafford also had three hits as UMHB pounded out 17 hits in the game. Bohrmann had two homers and five RBI for TLU, but Cru pitchers walked 10 batters and hit four others in the contest.
The Cru will continue its home stand with a three-game American Southwest Conference series against Hardin-Simmons this weekend. The two teams will open the series with a 7:00 PM single game on Friday before closing out the weekend with a 12:00 PM doubleheader on Saturday at Red Murff Field.