Belton, TX – The University of Mary Hardin-Baylor baseball team held off a late Hardin-Simmons rally in game two and the Cru held on to salvage a doubleheader split with the Cowboys Saturday afternoon in Belton. UMHB fell 9-1 in game one before surviving for a 5-4 victory in game two. The Cru is now 11-13 overall and 4-5 in American Southwest Conference West Division play. The Cowboys move to 15-10 overall and 5-4 in the ASC West after splitting the double dip.

UMHB grabbed the lead early and then held on for a 5-4 game two win. Garrett Webb and Seth Mogavero hit RBI doubles in the third to put the Cru up 2-0. Webb added an RBI single in the fourth to make it 3-0. The Cowboys put single runs on the board in the fifth and sixth, but UMHB answered with Chris Florack's RBI triple and Zack Whiddon's RBI double in the bottom of that frame. The Cowboys took advantage of two UMHB errors to cut the lead to 5-4 in the top of the eighth, but Sam VanHoozer pitched out of a ninth-inning jam to preserve the win for the Cru. VanHoozer notched his first save of the season and Chance Ryan earned the win to move to 3-2 on the season. Florack, Webb and Whiddon all had two hits apiece for UMHB in the victory.

UMHB fell behind early and never recovered in a 9-1 game one loss. The Cowboys took a 1-0 lead in the top of the third inning and added four more runs in the top of the fourth. Marcus Uechi's two-run double was the biggest hit in the inning. UMHB cut it to 5-1 on Robert Loewe's RBI single in the bottom of that frame, but HSU added four more in the top of the seventh to put it out of reach. The Cru was held to four hits in the game. Nick Bergmann took the loss to drop to 1-4 on the year. Bergmann gave up three runs and four hits in three innings.

UMHB will return to action with a three-game ASC West Division series at Concordia Texas next week in Austin. The two teams will play a 7:00 PM single game on Thursday before closing out the weekend with a 1:00 PM doubleheader on Friday.