BELTON, Texas – The University of Mary Hardin-Baylor baseball team earned a dominating win in its first road game of the season, taking a 15-3 win over University of St. Thomas (Texas) Tuesday evening in Houston. The win improved the Cru to 7-0 on the season while the Celts fell to 5-6 overall.
St. Thomas opened the game with a one-run frame but Rhett Grosz quickly responded for the Cru, hitting a home run in the first at-bat of the second inning to even the score. UMHB went ahead later in the inning when Carson Riley singled to score Kaden deBerardinis, giving the Cru a 2-1 lead after the first two frames.
UMHB added four more runs in the third inning to extend the lead. Hagan opened scoring, reaching on a sacrifice fly from Grosz before deBerardinis hit in Riley Bender with an RBI single. deBerardinis followed that, scoring on an error before Easton Cline hit in Carson Riley for a 6-1 Cru lead.
The Cru put up another four-run inning in the fourth to take a 10-1 lead. Tyler Betts opened the inning with a single then advanced to second on an error. Carson Hagan walked two batters later, allowing Betts to advance to third then score on an error. Talburt followed with a run off a passed ball before Hagan and Bender both scored on errors.
UMHB put up four more runs in the fifth. Easton Cline scored on an RBI from Talburt before Betts and Talburt both scored on a double from Hagan. Grosz followed that with an RBI single to score Hagan, putting UMHB up 14-0 through five innings.
St. Thomas tacked on two more runs in the sixth and the Cru added one seventh-inning score off an RBI double from Kyle Hogwood, sealing the 15-3 run-rule victory for the Cru.
Hagan, Grosz, deBerardinis and Cline all led the Cru with two hits each while Hagan scored a team-high three runs and Grosz batted in a team-high three runs. UMHB totaled 15 runs on 14 hits, leaving just six batters on base.
Keegan Symons earned the win on the mound for the Cru. Symons threw five innings with four hits and one run allowed. He struck out six of 23 batters faced, forcing seven flyouts and two groundouts. Jackson Keenan pitched one inning in relief, giving up two runs on two hits with one strikeout before Cameron Bogan closed the game on the mound for the Cru in a perfect seventh frame.
UMHB returns to action in its first road series of the season this weekend. The Cru will face Howard Payne University in a 1 p.m. contest on Friday, March 1st and close the series with a 12 p.m. doubleheader on Saturday, March 2nd.
