ASC Baseball Tournament Central Page
BELTON, Texas – The University of Mary Hardin-Baylor baseball team will open play in the 2021 American Southwest Conference Championship Tournament with a First Round game on Thursday in Richardson. The Cru is the #5 seed and will compete in the tournament's Blue Bracket in the opening round that features two four-team, double elimination tournaments.
UMHB will face #4 seed Concordia Texas (19-11, 14-9 ASC) in an 11 am start on Thursday to open the tournament. The Cru finished the regular season at 21-15 overall and 13-10 in the ASC to earn its first ASC Tournament berth since 2017. UMHB has also already posted its highest single-season win total since 2017 and is guaranteed to finish the year with a winning record. The two teams will be facing off for the third time in five days after splitting a doubleheader to close out the regular season Sunday in Austin. UMHB's pitching staff is led by the trio of
Andrew Acierni,
Jeb Zolman and
Trevor Ripke. Acierni leads the Cru with a 6-2 record and he has an ERA of 1.73 on the season to go with four complete games. Zolman is 2-3 with a 3.86 ERA and a team-best 53 strikeouts and Ripke is 3-4 with three saves and a 4.03 ERA on the year. Outfielder
Hunter Jones leads UMHB with a .387 batting average and he also has 24 RBI on the season. First baseman
Malek Bolin tops the Cru with six home runs and 26 RBI on the year. Shortstop
Caimyn Holiday has 16 doubles and is 20-20 in stolen bases this season to lead four players in double figures in steals. Bolin is batting .352, Holiday has a .348 average, catcher
Hunter McQuary is batting at a .345 clip and outfielder
Mateo Calle is at .311 to give the team five regulars batting .311 or higher this season. UMHB has 91 stolen bases as a team and is second in the ASC in that category. The Cru is batting .292 as a team and has 98 extra-base hits on the year. UMHB has a team ERA of 4.57 to rank third in the ASC behind only UT Dallas and Concordia in that category and Cru pitchers have combined to strike out 230 batters.
Tournament host and #1 seed UT Dallas (24-10, 19-7 ASC) will take on 8
th-seeded LeTourneau University (15-20, 13-14 ASC) in the Blue Bracket's other First Round Game at 3 pm on Thursday. The losing teams in the opening round games will face off in an elimination contest at 10 am on Friday with the two winners playing at 1 pm. The Championship Game of the Blue Bracket is scheduled for 1 pm on Saturday with the "if necessary" game to follow. UT Dallas will provide live video and live statistics for all of the games. Links to live coverage will be available on the UMHB athletic department web site at
www.cruathletics.com.
ASC #2 seed East Texas Baptist will host the tournament's Red Bracket in the opening round in Marshall. The Tigers (26-14, 19-8 ASC) will take on #7 seed Belhaven University (20-16, 15-12 ASC) at 7 pm on Thursday in that bracket. The Red Bracket will open with #3 seed Louisiana College (23-14, 19-8 ASC) facing 6
th-seeded University of the Ozarks (15-15, 13-10 ASC) at 3 pm.
The winners of the Blue Bracket and Red Bracket will meet for the ASC Championship in the Gold Bracket, a best-of-three series to determine the ASC Champion. The Gold Bracket series will be play May 13-15
th at the highest remaining seed and the ASC Champion will claim the league's automatic bid to the NCAA Division III National Championships.
