ABILENE, Texas – Hardin-Simmons' baseball team fell 10-5 in the first game of its American Southwest Conference series with No. 5 East Texas Baptist on Friday night at Hunter Field.
 
Jacob Evangilesta homered to lead off the game for the Tigers and Brett Wagner added an RBI single in the first. Karson Leatherwood cut the deficit in half with a sacrifice fly in the third inning. ETBU added another run in the fourth on a Landon Durdin RBI single after an error by the Cowboys.
 
ETBU scored two more runs in the fifth and three in the sixth to push the lead to 8-1. Sam Buchkowski hit his first home run of the year a two-run shot for the Cowboys in the sixth inning. ETBU added a pair of runs in the seventh.
 
HSU scored a run in the eighth inning on an RBI single by Nick Ellington and added an RBI single by Jett Forrest in the ninth.
 
Jagger Neely worked six innings for the Tigers and allowed three runs on six hits. He improved to 7-1 with the win.
 
Wyatt Tumlinson worked five innings for the Cowboys and fell to 3-6 with the loss. He allowed 11 hits and five runs. Caleb Smith, Alex Carte, Brandon Bane, Johnny Follett and Bradley Fletcher all worked out of the bullpen for HSU.
 
Jacob Hollingsworth, Kyler Reed, Buchkowski, Ellington and Gannon Azios all had two hits in the Cowboys' 11-hit attack. Evangelista had three hits for the Tigers as they pounded out 18 hits in the contest.
 
HSU fell to 11-18 overall and 6-10 in ASC play. ETBU improved to 25-6 overall and 15-1 in conference action.
 
The two teams will play a 1 p.m. doubleheader on Saturday.
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