Brownwood, Texas: A cold morning led to two Howard Payne walk-offs in extra innings as the Jackets swept the double header 5-4 and 2-1.
Game One
The Jackets jumped out to an early 3-0 lead thanks to an RJ Roberts SAC fly, a Nolyn Box triple and a Manny Torralba double.
After that big 1st inning, the Jackets would be shut down over the remaining 5 innings, finding themselves down 4-3 headed in the bottom of the 7th in a 7 inning game.
After a Noah Payne single lead off the 7th inning, Josh Gerig moved him over with a groundout and then a Ty McCain single brought him in to tie the game and send it into extras.
The 8th inning proved to be uneventful as we stranded Keldon Crawford at 3rd.
Lunceford led off the 9th with a single then advanced to 2nd on a ball in the dirt. Noah grounded out to move Lunceford over to 3rd. Then, with Joshua Gerig batting, he came home on a passed ball to take the ball game 5-4.
Noah Payne led the Jackets at the plate going 3-5 and crossing the plate twice. Manny Torralba added a 2-4 day with an RBI.
Bryson Lyro got the start for the Jackets tossing 5.2 innings giving up 8 hits and 4 runs, 2 earned. Xavier Haines threw a perfect 1.1 innings and Brendan Clanton grabbed the win on the walk off throwing 2 innings giving up only 1 hit.
Game Two
The second game of the Saturday doubleheader proved to be an old fashioned pitcher's duel. Scheduled to be only a 7 inning game, both starting pitchers went at least that for their teams.
HPU struck in the 1st with a Nolyn Box single that brought Ty McCain home. UMHB wouldn't tie the game up until the 4th at 1 apiece.
Jacob Rodriguez walked with 1 out to start off the 8th. Then David Groves got a pinch hit walk to move Rodriguez over to second. Cliff Lunceford came up and laced a hard grounder to short stop who tossed it to the 2nd baseman, then in an attempt to turn 2, the ball sailed over the 1st baseman's head to score Rodriguez. The Jackets complete their 3rd straight walk off 2-1.
RJ Roberts led the Jackets in this contest going 2-3 followed by Nolyn Box's 1-4 with an RBI.
Preston Newman had a great start firing 7 innings of 4 hit ball and only giving up 1 unearned run. Brenden Clanton would swoop in and grab this win though after throwing a flawless 8th inning, his 2nd win of the weekend.
The Jackets improved to 9-7, 6-0 in the ASC and the Cru drops to 3-9, 0-3 in ASC play. They walked off all 3 games against UMHB and have now won 7 straight. The Jackets will be back at it again next weekend here at home against Belhaven. The first pitch of Friday's double header will be at Noon.
