The University of Mary Hardin-Baylor baseball team used a pair of five run innings to break the game open as the Cru went on to a 14-5 victory over Blackburn College Wednesday night in Belton. UMHB improves to 6-10 with the victory. The loss drops the Beavers to 2-10 on the year.
Mark Frankhouser opened the scoring with a solo home run in the bottom of the first inning. UMHB added three more in the top of the second inning. Malek Bolin doubled home the first run and came around to score on a wild pitch. Frankhouser's sacrifice fly pushed it to 4-0. The Beavers tied it up with four runs in the top of the third. Ryan Steen's two-run homer was the biggest hit in the frame. The Cru answered with a five-spot in the bottom of that inning. Bolin's sacrifice fly opened the scoring, Sam Wheatley tripled home two runs and Mitch Patterson and Austin Blanford followed with RBI singles to give UMHB a 9-4 lead. Blackburn scored on a wild pitch in the top of the fifth but the Cru responded with five runs in the bottom of the inning. Three runs scored on wild pitches, one came home on an error and Landon Dieterich hit a solo homer to give the Cru a 14-5 edge after five. Both teams settled down from there as it ended up 14-5.
Jacob Krzemien earned the win for UMHB to move to 1-0 and four Cru pitchers combined to limit Blackburn to eight hits in the game. Wheatley had four hits for UMHB and Dieterich and Braden Letney added three apiece as the Cru finished with 19 hits as a team. Tyler Durand and Steen had two hits apiece for Blackburn. Brady Wilkinson took the loss for the Beavers to drop to 0-1 on the season.
The Cru will continue its home stand with a 2:00 PM non-conference game against Millikin on Thursday. UMHB will then host LeTourneau University for a three-game American Southwest Conference series this weekend. That series opens with a 6:00 PM single game on Friday.
