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RICHARDSON, Texas – The University of Mary Hardin-Baylor baseball team broke open a pitcher's duel with a four-run sixth inning and held on from there in a 6-3 victory over Concordia Texas in the opening game of the American Southwest Conference Championship Tournament Thursday in Richardson. The game opened the Blue Bracket of the ASC Championship Tournament.
 
UMHB opened the scoring with Malek Bolin's RBI double in the top of the first inning. Concordia answered with Grayson Lee's run-scoring single in the bottom of that frame. The pitching staffs settled down from there and it stayed a 1-1 game into the top of the sixth. Caimyn Holiday doubled home a run to start the rally and he scored on Hunter McQuary's RBI single to stretch it to 3-1. McQuary stole home on a double steal and Bolin would come around to score on a throwing error to give UMHB a 5-1 lead. The Tornados pushed across a pair of runs in the bottom of the sixth on an RBI single from Corbin Cross and Lee's RBI fielder's choice to cut the lead to 5-3. Dawson Shibley's sacrifice fly plated Blake Harmon in the top of the seventh to make it a 6-3 Cru lead. Andrew Acierni would do the rest on the mound for UMHB, shutting down Concordia the rest of the way.
 
Acierni pitched a complete-game, six-hitter for the Cru to improve to 7-2 on the season. He struck out four and walked just one on the day. McQuary finished with three hits for UMHB and Bolin and Harmon added two hits apiece. Easton Migl (1-4) took the loss for the Tornados after giving up three runs on four hits in three innings of relief work. E.J. Sanchez had two of Concordia's six hits in the game.
 
UMHB improves to 22-15 on the season with the victory and moves into the winner's bracket with its first ASC Tournament victory since 2014. The Cru will now take on tournament host and #1 seed UT Dallas on Friday at 1 pm. The loss drops Concordia to 19-12 on the year. The Tornados will face LeTourneau University in an elimination game at 10 am on Friday.