ABILENE, Texas – The Howard Payne baseball team dropped its American Southwest Conference series opener against Hardin-Simmons, 8-4, on Sunday night at Hunter Field. Brandon Garrett led Yellow Jackets with four hits.

Howard Payne scored a pair of runs in the fourth inning to open the scoring on a Cody Cain RBI single and scored a run on the fall down play that allowed a runner to come home when the HSU throw went to second and started a run down.

HSU hit a long home run to left field in the fourth. HSU then took the lead in the fifth on a bases loaded walk and another run on a wild pitch. HSU pushed the lead to 6-2 in the sixth on an RBI single. Another run scored on a wild pitch and the third run came home on a double play.  

HSU rounded out its scoring with a two-run home run in the seventh.

In the seventh, Cody Cain had a sacrifice fly to score Cody Brown. Later Brett Quackenbush singled to right field advancing Jake Sadler to third and scoring on a fielding error by HSU right fielder,

Brandon Garrett had four of the seven HPU hits. Jacob Spivey started and allowed six earned runs on seven hits in five innings to fall to 1-4. Chad Anders, Garrett Virgin and Zach Moseley each worked out of the bullpen for HPU.

Howard Payne fell to 8-10 overall and 3-9 in league play. Hardin-Simmons is now 6-8 on the year and 2-4 in ASC play. The teams will play a 1 p.m. doubleheader on Monday.