BELTON, Texas - The University of Mary Hardin-Baylor baseball team closed its season in the 2024 American Southwest Conference Championship Tournament Thursday in Marshall. The Cru suffered narrow losses to Hardin-Simmons University and McMurry University to end its 2024 campaign. 

Carson Hagan gave the Cru a lead in the first inning of game one, hitting a two-RBI home run to score Cameron Talburt for a two-run margin. The Cru tacked on one more run in the second frame when Elijah Rodriguez scored on a wild pitch. Hardin-Simmons cut the gap to one in the third, scoring a pair of runs off back-to-back singles. Rhett Grosz opened the bottom of that frame with another home run, giving the Cru a 4-2 lead after three. 

UMHB held that lead until the sixth inning when the Cowboys scored a pair of runs on an RBI single from Sam Buchkowski to knot the game at four. Hardin-Simmons took its first lead of the game in the seventh, scoring off an RBI single to third base for a 5-4 margin. The Cru put a runner in scoring position in the eighth but the Cowboys got out of it with a fielder's choice. 

Cameron Talburt opened the bottom of the ninth with a walk before Carson Hagan hit into a fielder's choice to get Talburt out and put Hagan at first. Hagan stole second and third base before scoring on an RBI groundout from Rhett Grosz to tie the game at five. 

Kyler Reed took the lead back for the Cowboys in the top of tenth, scoring an in-the-park home run off an injury to a Crusader outfielder. The Cru put a runner on in the 10th but wasn't able to score, falling 6-5 to the Cowboys. 

Cameron Talburt led the Cru with two hits while seven other Crusaders added one each. Hagan was the team's run leader with two while he and Rhett Grosz each drove in a pair of RBI. 

James McGlumphy opened the game on the mound for the Cru, throwing seven innings with three earned runs allowed. McGlumphy struck out six of 31 batters faced in the outing. Nicklas Fenner pitched in relief, giving up just four hits in three
innings with one earned run allowed. 

McMurry took an early lead in game two before the Cru used a pair of RBI singles from Carson Hagan and Rhett Grosz in the bottom of the third to take a 2-1 lead. The War Hawks answered with a trio of runs in the fourth before Jayden Chatman hit a home run in the bottom of that frame to cut the War Hawk lead to just one.  

Both McMurry and the Cru put up single-run frames in the sixth before the War Hawks added two more runs in the eighth. UMHB fought back but could not overcome the deficit, falling 7-4 to the War Hawks. 

Hagan and Jayden Chatman led the Cru with three hits each while Chatman scored a team-high two runs. UMHB totaled four runs on 11 hits with four RBI in the contest. 

Andrew Acierni opened the game on the mound, throwing two innings with two hits and one run allowed. Rahul Champaneri added six innings with five runs allowed while Jacob Haynes also threw one frame. 

The Cru ends the season at 24-17 with a 14-20 overall mark in American Southwest Conference action.