Irving, Texas - The Yellow Jacket Baseball Club traveled to do battle with the Crusaders of University of Dallas on Tuesday. Noah Payne hit for the cycle as they split the double header by scores of 12-5 in their favor and 7-2 in favor of UD.

Game 1

The Jackets got out to an early 1-0 lead with a Ty McCain SAC fly after a Noah Payne leadoff triple. That is Payne's 10^th on the year tying him for the American Southwest Conference single season record.

The Crusaders bounced back and took the lead in the 1^st 2-1, but it wasn't long before the Jackets responded with a Payneful answer. After a David Groves single led off the 2^nd, Jacob Rodriguez and Cliff Lunceford added back to back 2 out singles to bring Noah Payne to the plate. Payne then blasted a ball to the parking lot for a grand slam to give the Jackets a 5-2 lead.

UD would battle back within one in the 2^nd but Joshua Gerig smacked an RBI single after a Noah Payne intentional walk to add to the lead and Jacob Rodriguez did much of the same to score Gerig.

Payne would add an RBI single in the 7^th to complete the cycle and would score the final run for the Jackets on a Jacob Salazar ground out making the final 12-5.

Noah Payne completed the cycle going 4-4 with 5 RBIs. His at bats included a triple in the 1^st, homerun in the 2^nd, intentional walk in the 4^th, double in the 6^th and the single in the 7th. Ty McCain added a 2-3 game with 3 RBIs and Cliff Lunceford would go 2-3 with 3 runs scored.

Graham White got the start going 2 innings giving up 7 hits and 4 runs while striking out 1. Kory Owen got the win tossing 2 innings and only giving up 1 hit. Ryan Richardson, Connor Lowe and Ethan Cerna also saw time.  

Game 2

The second game of the afternoon started off with a bang as Cade Varrichio roped a line drive over the left field fence to put the Jackets up 1-0, his 1^st homerun of his career.

After that, it was all UD going up 7-1 over the next 5 innings and holding the Jackets to only 3 hits for the contest. Jacob Rodriguez scored on an error to make the final 7-2. Snapping the Jackets 11 game win streak.

Cade Varrichio led the Jackets going 1-2 with a walk and a solo homerun.

Johnny Cravey got the start and loss for the Jackets going 1 inning and giving up 2 hits, 3 runs while striking out 1. Ben Schardt, Kyle Prudes, Landin Blass and Xavier Haines also saw action as the staff day was completed.

Howard Payne improves to 13-8, and stays at 9-0 in ASC play. The loss in game two brought an end to the longest win streak in Howard Payne baseball history since restarting the program in 1988. The previous record was 10 held by the 1993 Yellow Jackets. HPU will be back on the road this weekend at the University of the Ozarks in Clarksville, Arkansas. They'll play two games on Friday starting at 1:00 pm. For links to live stats and video, you can visit HPUSports.com.