ABILENE, Texas – In their final series of the regular season, the Concordia Baseball team split the doubleheader against McMurry to win the series on Saturday afternoon.
In game one,
Casen Novak led the way for the Tornados, going a perfect 3-3 for the game, with two RBIs and a walk.
Race Mellman scored three times and had a pair of hits, driving in two, while
Caleb Maddox also had two hits with a run scored and an RBI.
Justin Traxler was on the bump for CTX, going five innings, allowing only one run on five hits while striking out four for his third win of the year.
The War Hawks led 1-0 at the one frame after a solo home run to left. The Tornados would respond though as they scored in five of the game's seven innings, including in four straight innings as they led 7-1 after six frames played.
Kylen Harrell came on in relief in the sixth and allowed only a hit in two innings of work as CTX added a run in the seventh and went on to take the first game 8-1.
In game two, the Tornados and McMurry battled in a back and forth game.
CTX would take its first lead of the game in the fourth after trailing 1-0. The first three Tornados would reach base in the inning, as
Michael Evan brought home the first run with an RBI double.
Jake Valadez followed with a sac fly and Maddox would cap the inning with RBI single up the middle to give CTX a 3-1 lead.
The War Hawks responded with a run in the bottom half of the fourth and would take back the lead with a three-run sixth, heading to the seventh with a 5-3 lead.
In the seventh, CTX had its own three-run inning to go up 6-5 as Valadez was hit by the pitch with the bases load to bring home the go-ahead run.
McMurry would tie the game in the bottom half of the inning on a home run, ending
Matthew Williams day as he pitched 6.1 innings, allowing six runs on five hits.
Ryan Capel came in relief, but was unable to get out of the inning unscathed as the War Hawks took a 7-6 lead on an RBI single.
In their final at-bat, the Tornados had two hits in the inning, but was unable to get the tying-run home as McMurry took the series finale.
CTX's regular season is over and now they will look ahead to the American Southwest Conference Tournament beginning on Friday, May 5 with the first round games played at the sites of the top two teams of the conference standings, UT Tyler and UT Dallas.
