Belton, Texas – The University of Mary Hardin-Baylor baseball team won a pitcher's duel in game one and saw a late-inning rally fall short in a game two slugfest as the Cru split a doubleheader with U.T. Dallas Saturday in Belton. UMHB won game one 2-1 before falling 16-7 in game two. The Cru is now 19-16 overall and 13-8 in American Southwest Conference play. The 13th-ranked Comets are 28-9 overall and 16-5 in the ASC on the year.
The Cru took game one 2-1 behind dominate pitching and timely hitting. Ty Johnson's solo home run just inside the right field foul pole gave UMHB a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the second. The Comets tied the game on Connor Scruggs' RBI double in the top of the fourth. The Cru pushed across the go ahead run when Mark Frankhouser doubled, advanced on a throwing error and scored on a wild pitch in the bottom of the fifth inning. Aaron Barteau relieved Casey Frazier with a runner on base and no outs in the top of the sixth and pitched out of that jam. UTD put the tying run on base in the top of the seventh, but Barteau closed it out for his 11th save of the year. Frazier picked up the win to improve to 4-0 on the year. The duo limited the Comets to four hits. Ruben Renteria took the loss for UTD to drop to 8-1 on the year.
A five-run second inning jumpstarted UTD in game two and the Cru's late rally bid came up short in a 16-7 loss. The Comets bunched five hits in the second with Connor Scruggs' two-run single being the biggest to grab a 5-0 lead. A run-scoring error cut it to 5-1 in the bottom of that inning and the Cru added Johnson's RBI fielder's choice and Frankhouser's RBI single to make it 5-3 in the bottom of the third. The Comets scored three in the fifth, four in the seventh and one more in the eighth inning to make it a 13-3 lead. Kenny Foster drove in a run with a ground ball, Mitch Patterson singled home two runs and Landon Dieterich drove in another with a fielder's choice to pull UMHB to within 13-7 in the bottom of the eight. The Comets tacked on three more in the top of the ninth to put it out of reach. Evan Samoff (2-5) took the loss for the Cru. Patterson had four hits and Frankhouser added three more for UMHB. Cole Hanson got the win to move to 4-1 for UTD and Barry Casey had four of the Comets' 20 hits in the game.
UMHB will close out the regular season with a three-game series at Louisiana College next weekend. The Cru has already clinched a berth in the ASC Championship Tournament.