Belton, Texas – The University of Mary Hardin-Baylor baseball team grabbed an early lead and then held on in the late innings as the Cru posted a 12-10 victory over Southwestern University Tuesday night in Belton. UMHB improves to 4-7 on the season with the victory and three of the Cru's wins have come against teams from the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference. The loss drops the Pirates to 3-11 on the year.
Southwestern grabbed a 1-0 lead in the top of the first inning, but UMHB answered with two runs in the bottom of that frame. Scott Stephens drove in the tying run with a groundout and Chase Burrow doubled in the go-ahead run. The Cru added four runs in the bottom of the second. Caleb Davis doubled home the first run, Seth Martin added an RBI on a squeeze bunt attempt, Dakota Parsons singled home a run and Stephens added another RBI groundout to make it 6-1. Southwestern put three runs on the board in the top of the fourth to pull to within 6-4, but UMHB again responded, this time with a four-run fourth. Max Conway's two-run double was the biggest hit in that rally. Both teams scored a run in the fifth to make it 11-5 UMHB and the Pirates scored two runs in the sixth and two more in the seventh to cut the gap to 11-9. Davis scored on an error in the bottom of the seventh to make it a 12-9 game, but Southwestern added a run in the top of the eighth to pull to within 12-10. The Cru left the bases loaded in the bottom of the eighth and the Pirates put the tying run at second base with one out but Cory Farr closed it out with a strikeout and line drive to end the threat.
Connor Heussner earned the win for UMHB to move to 1-0 and Farr notched his third save of the year. Josh Bray took the loss for Southwestern to drop to 0-2. Will Stafford had three hits for the Cru and Seth Martin, Burrow, Conway, Cody Stone and Davis added two hits apiece as UMHB pounded out 15 hits. Ben Little had three hits for Southwestern and four other players had two hits each for the Pirates.
The Cru will travel to Brownwood for a three-game American Southwest Conference series at Howard Payne. The two teams will face off in a 1:00 PM single game on Friday before closing out the weekend with a noon doubleheader on Saturday.