The University of Mary Hardin-Baylor baseball team saw a game two comeback fall just short as the Cru dropped both ends of a doubleheader to the University of the Ozarks Friday in Arkansas. UMHB fell 8-3 in game one before dropping a 7-6 decision in game two. The Cru is now 8-15 overall and 5-6 in American Southwest Conference play on the season. The Eagles improve to 12-9 overall and 7-4 in ASC play following the two wins.
UMHB gave up an eight-run fifth inning in an 8-3 game one loss. Ozarks threatened to score in the bottom of the second inning, but Dakota Best cut down an Eagles runner at the plate trying to score on Patrick Mixon's single. The Cru broke a 0-0 deadlock on Best's RBI groundout in the top of the fourth inning. Ozarks broke it open in the bottom of the fifth frame. Sam Swartz's RBI single opened the scoring, Breyden Varner followed with a two-run homer and Josh Woolly and Mixon added run-scoring doubles before Fielder Dufrene hit a three-run home run of his own to put the Eagles up 8-1. All of those runs scored with two outs. Max Conway's two-run homer cut the lead to 8-3 in the top of the seventh but that is as close as UMHB would get. Casey Frazier took the loss for the Cru to drop to 1-2 on the season. Conway and Mark Frankhouser had two hits apiece for UMHB. Gyeongju Kim tossed a complete-game six-hitter for the Ozarks to raise his record to 2-3. Woolly had three hits of the Eagles' ten hits.
The Cru grabbed an early lead and then saw a late rally fall short in a 7-6 loss in game two. Landon Dieterich's two-run double made it 2-0 in the top of the first. Ozarks answered with three runs in the bottom of that inning. Best tied it with an RBI double in the top of the second, but the Eagles scored single runs in the third and fourth for a 5-3 lead. Frankhouser's RBI single cut it to 5-4 in the sixth. Ozarks added a run in the bottom of that frame for a 604 cushion. The Cru tied the game on Caleb Davis' solo homer and Mitch Patterson's RBI single in the top of the seventh, but Ozarks scored the go-ahead run on an error in the bottom of the seventh. UMHB would bring the go-ahead run to the plate in the top of the ninth, but a double play ended the threat and the game. Josh Horton took the loss for the Cru to drop to 0-1 on the season. Five different players had two hits apiece for UMHB in the game.
The two teams will close out the series with a 1 pm single game on Saturday. UMHB will then return home to host Trinity University for a 6 pm non-conference game Tuesday at Red Murff Field.
