Austin, Texas – The University of Mary Hardin-Baylor baseball team used timely hitting and dominant pitching to post a 3-1 victory over Concordia Texas Friday night in Austin. The Cru improves to 7-8 overall and 4-3 in American Southwest Conference play with its fourth consecutive victory. The Tornados fall to 13-8 overall and 5-2 in the ASC on the year with the loss.

Mitch Patterson's RBI single gave UMHB a 1-0 lead in the top of the first inning. Ryan Clouse tied the game with an RBI single for Concordia in the bottom of the fourth inning. Patterson gave the lead back to the Cru with a two-run single in the top of the fifth inning. UMHB pitcher Nathan Kent took over from there, holding the Tornados in check until the bottom of the eighth inning. Concordia's Bret Leiferman tripled with one out, but Aaron Barteau entered the game and promptly struck out the next two batters to end the threat and preserve the Cru lead. UMHB put two runners on base in the top of the ninth inning, but could not add to the lead. Barteau struck out the leadoff batter in the bottom of the ninth before allowing a walk. He would get a groundout and another strikeout to close out it and set a new UMHB Division III era career record for saves.

Kent scattered six hits over seven and a third innings to even his record at 2-2. Barteau struck out four batters in one and two-thirds innings to notch his third save of the year. It was the 11th save of Barteau's career, breaking a tie with Sam VanHoozer to make Barteau the Cru's DIII era leader in saves. Patterson finished with three hits and drove in all three UMHB runs. Dakota Best, Landon Dieterich and Ty Johnson all added two hits apiece for the Cru. Michael Brown took the loss for Concordia to fall to 3-1 on the year. Leiferman had three of the Tornados six hits in the game.

The two teams will close out the series with a 1:00 PM doubleheader on Saturday in Austin. UMHB will then return to action with a 7:00 PM non-conference game against Texas Lutheran on Tuesday at Red Murff Field.