ABILENE, Texas – Hardin-Simmons' baseball team fell to Concordia 8-4 on Friday night in the opening game of a three-game American Southwest Conference series at Hunter Field.

HSU opened the scoring with an RBI single in the second inning for HSU. Aaron Gomez had a sacrifice fly in the third to tie the game and Karson Leatherwood gave the Cowboys the lead back in the bottom of the third with an RBI double.

Concordia tied the game in the fourth and then pushed the lead to 5-2 in the fifth inning.

Colby Seltzer's sixth home run of the season led off the fifth inning making it 5-3. Gomez had an RBI single in the eighth and Jett Forrest added a solo home run for the Cowboys to cut the deficit to 6-4 in the eighth but the Tornados added a pair of runs when a ball was lost in the lights with two outs.

Leatherwood led the Cowboys with two hits. Zach Seigrist had three hits for the Tornados.

Caidon Livingston started and took the loss for the Cowboys to fall to 5-2 on the year. He allowed five runs (three earned) over four and two-third innings. Caleb Smith came on and got out of a bases-loaded jam in the fifth. Jaydon Stephens, Alex Carte and Johnny Follett all worked out of the bullpen.

Otto Franz earned the win with seven strong innings, allowing just three runs on eight hits to improve to 5-1 on the year. Jake Lancaster worked the final two innings for the save.

The Cowboys are 10-12 overall and 6-4 in league play. Concordia improved to 13-9 overall and is also 6-4 in ASC play. The teams will play a 1 p.m. doubleheader on Saturday at Hunter Field.

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