Belton, Texas – The University of Mary Hardin-Baylor baseball team rallied late but the Cru comeback fell short in a 7-5 loss to Howard Payne in the American Southwest Conference Tournament Thursday in Austin. The loss eliminates UMHB from the tournament as the Cru finishes the year at 19-22 overall. Howard Payne improves to 16-24 on the year with the victory and advances to another elimination game on Friday at 10:00 AM.
UMHB took a 1-0 lead on back-to-back doubles from K.J. Stark and Dakota Parsons in the top of the third inning. HPU tied the game with a run in the bottom of the frame and took a 2-1 lead on Walker Dailey's RBI double in the bottom of the fourth. The Cru threw another runner out at the plate on that play to keep it a 2-1 game. The Yellow Jackets added three more runs in the bottom of the fifth to take a 5-1 lead. Tripp Reeves cut it to 5-2 with an RBI groundout in the top of the sixth, but Howard Payne scored two more runs in the bottom of that inning to make it 7-2. Riley Davis hit a sacrifice fly in the top of the eighth inning to close the gap to 7-3, but UMHB left the bases loaded in that inning. Rob Loewe blasted a two-run home run well over the screen in left field to pull the Cru to within 7-5 in the top of the ninth. The Cru then put the tying run on base with back-to-back singles from Chase Burrow and Reeves, but HPU got a flyout and strikeout to end the UMHB threat and the Cru's season.
Loewe and Burrow led UMHB with three hits apiece and Parsons added two more. Seth Hill took the loss after giving up six hits and four runs in four and a third innings to finish the year at 3-4. Jacob Spivey went eight and a third innings for HPU to improve to 3-7 on the year and Dustin Kelver closed it out for his first save of the season. Cody Brown had three of the Yellow Jackets' 14 hits in the game.
The Cru was making its third consecutive appearance in the ASC Championship Tournament. Thursday's loss also closes out the playing careers of eight UMHB seniors: Loewe, Reeves, Stark, Kreece Cooper, Jacob Riley Davis, Justin Dingman, Ian Ekery and Heath Spencer.