ABILENE, Texas – Hardin-Simmons' baseball team split an American Southwest Conference doubleheader with Sul Ross State on Saturday at Hunter Field, winning 5-4 in the first game and falling 16-4 in the regular-season finale.

HSU (21-19 overall and 14-16 in ASC play) advances to the American Southwest Conference Tournament next weekend in Richardson. The sixth-seeded Cowboys will take on Belhaven in the opening round at 11 a.m. on Thursday.

The Cowboys had a long day of celebration as the groundbreaking ceremony before the first game of the new Hunter Family / Powell Family Indoor Facility and a ring presentation to the 1982 Trans America Athletic Conference champion team happened before the game.

In between games of the doubleheader, HSU had a ceremony for its five players playing their last game at Hunter Field – seniors Garrett Frazier, Hayden Clark and Weston Hickman and two juniors Gabe Moore and Orel Rhodes who are graduating early.

Game 1

The Cowboys won the first game in the top of the seventh inning when Sul Ross State tried the double squeeze bunt which HSU executed to cut down the winning run at the plate. With one out and runners on second and third, Tye Lindsey had a sacrifice bunt to bring home Jared Lorenz and Carsen Thor was in motion from second as well and he tried to follow him in. Caleb Smith came on and threw one pitch and got the out at first and Sam Buchkowski threw a strike to Jett Forrest who put down the tag to gut down Thor.

HSU had jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the first inning on a Frazier RBI double, a sacrifice fly by Corey Ballew and a third run on a passed ball. Sul Ross added two runs in the second on bases-loaded walks to Esteban Ortiz and Jared Roiz.

HSU added an RBI single by Gannon Azios in the third and Nick Ellington in the fourth to make the score 5-2. Roiz had a sacrifice fly in the sixth to cut it to 5-3 before the dramatics in the seventh inning of the seven-inning game.

That ended the day for HSU starter Grant Mitzelfelt and Kadin Croak came and was solid for five and one-third innings. Croak struck out three straight batters with the bases loaded in the second and worked into the seventh. He struck out a career-high seven batters to earn the win and Smith earned the save.

Aiden Becker took the loss allowing five runs in four innings and Aidan Mow worked two scoreless innings of relief for the Lobos.

Azios and Brayden Martin had two hits each for the Cowboys and Lorenz and Peyten Kennard had two hits each for Sul Ross State.

Game 2

The Lobos scored five runs in the first, seventh and eighth innings to put the run-rule in effect 16-4.

Martin and Ellington had RBI singles in the fifth inning and Ballew had a two-run double in the eighth for the only runs by the Cowboys.

Hickman and Frazier had two hits each and Kennard and Moreno had three hits each for the Lobos.

Jacob Salinas earned the win with five innings of two-run ball for the Lobos to improve to 1-1. Brandon Girod took the loss for HSU to fall to 3-3.

Sul Ross State closes the season with a record of 14-22 overall and 11-19 in league play.

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