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TYLER, Texas– The University of Mary Hardin-Baylor softball team took a dominating win in its first contest of the 2018 American Southwest Conference Softball Championship Tournament, beating the University of Texas at Dallas 7-2 Thursday night in Tyler. The win improved the Cru to 29-12 on the season while the Comets fell to 24-18.
 
Dusti Douglas gave the Cru its first lead of the contest when she scored off an RBI single from Hannah Wolfe in the bottom of the second inning. UT Dallas evened the contest in the top of the next frame before Devon Walter slammed a home run in the third, scoring Makenzi Dawson and putting the Cru up by two. UMHB scored four more insurance runs in the fourth with RBI from Dawson and Emily Bounds. Ravin Wilson hit a home run for the Comets in the top of the seventh but UMHB forced three outs in the next three at-bats to secure the 7-2 win.
 
Wolfe led the Cru with three hits while Dawson, Douglas and Kasi Cummings each added two. Dawson and Walter recorded a team-high three RBI while Dawson and Douglas scored a game-high two runs each. Hannah Halepaska earned the win in the circle for UMHB, pitching seven innings with eight hits and two runs allowed. Halepaska walked just one with one strikeout in her 16^th win of the season. Karen Crane took the loss for the Comets, pitching 3.1 innings with eight hits and seven runs allowed. Allie Stephens threw in relief, allowing two hits in 2.2 shutout innings. UMHB totaled seven runs on 10 hits while the Comets had two runs on eight hits with one error.
 
UMHB advances to the double-elimination portion of the bracket and will play tournament-host UT Tyler on Friday, May 4^th at 1 p.m. The winner of that match will advance to a semifinal contest at 7 p.m. while the loser will play in an elimination game at 4 p.m. The tournament championship is scheduled for Saturday, May 5^th at 2 p.m. with the winner earning the ASC's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.