BELTON, Texas - The UMHB Baseball team scored early and took a shutout into the final inning as they beat the Howard Payne University 8-2 Friday night in Belton. HPU scattered eight hits but failed to get a run across until the ninth inning in the loss. The victory for the Crusaders brings their overall record to 22-16 and their conference record to 15-13. Howard Payne falls to 10-28 overall and 6-22 in American Southwest Conference play.
 
UMHB put this game out of reach early as they put seven runs on the board in the bottom of the first inning. Robert McCall opened up scoring with a grand slam to put the Cru up 4-0 before an out was recorded. Rhett Grosz extended the lead with an RBI single followed by an RBI sacrifice flyout by Kaden deBerardinis. UMHB scored their final run of the inning when Drake Herrera hit an RBI single in his second at bat of the inning. After four scoreless innings by both teams, UMHB extended their lead once more on an RBI single hit by Malek Bolin. Taking an 8-0 lead into the final inning, the Cru surrendered two unearned runs on a two run double hit by Will Iannacone. Herrera and Grosz each had two hits for UMHB and McCall had four RBI. Noah Coronado had two hits for the Yellow Jackets in the contest.
 
The UMHB pitching was stellar once again. James McGlumphy started on the mound and threw six innings of shutout baseball on his way to the win, moving his season record to 5-2. McGumphy faced 23 batters and struck out eight of them while surrendering only five hits. Alex Palczewski threw three innings of relief allowing two unearned runs on three hits. Gary Blair started on the mound for the Yellow Jackets and took the loss (3-3). Blair allowed seven runs on seven hits and struck out three batters before he was relieved by Brendan Read. Read threw the final three innings and allowed just one run on three hits while striking out six.
 
The series continues tomorrow afternoon with a double header starting at 12 P.M. in Belton. We will honor our class of 2022 seniors at the completion of the series.