ABILENE, Texas – Hardin-Simmons' Cowboy baseball team took the opening game of a doubleheader 4-1 against TLU before dropping game two 15-2 on Saturday afternoon at John J. Hunter Field.
The Cowboys got a gem from
Alex Carte on the mound in game one. He threw seven innings for a complete game with six hits and one unearned run with three strikeouts and only one walk.
HSU got the lead in the second inning with two runs.
Keaton Schwestka and
Baylan Vaughan hit sac flies in the inning for one RBI each to get the 2-0 lead.
Luke Kirkbride singled to score the third Cowboy run in the fifth inning. The Bulldogs added a run on an error in the sixth to make it 3-1.
The Cowboys got the insurance back with a
Justin Blancaflor double to the wall in right for an RBI in the sixth and held down the win 4-1 over a good Texas Lutheran team.
Jacob Hollingsworth, Blancaflor, and Kirkbride each led the team with two hits in the win in game one.
TLU started game two fast with two runs in the first but Hardin-Simmons answered with two runs in the first to tie the game 2-2. Blancaflor doubled for the first RBI and came around to score after a steal of third base and a throwing error.
That was unfortunately all she wrote for the Cowboys as the Bulldogs added 13 runs across the next six innings to take the game 15-2 in seven innings.
Blancaflor finished with three hits while
Brock Calvillo and
Jake Trapani had two hits each for HSU.
Bo Bolton started for the Cowboys pitching and threw one plus innings with a strikeout.
Ethan Riley had the loss with three innings and a strikeout.
Jackson Smith,
Tristan Boedeker, and
Coulter Maxson came in to finish the day for Hardin-Simmons.
Hardin-Simmons finished the weekend dropping the series three games to one to TLU but avoided the sweep with a win on Saturday to end with a record of 3-8 on the year. The Cowboys will travel to Concordia Texas on Tuesday before hosting Trinity at Hunter Field Wednesday.
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