AUSTIN, Texas – Bret Leiferman hit the first home run of the season and Diego Cruz-Garcia tossed a gem as the Concordia Texas baseball team picked up a doubleheader sweep over Schreiner on Saturday at Tornado Field.

The Tornados picked up a win in game one 8-4 and followed it up with a 12-2 victory in game two as CTX moved to 7-1 on the season.

In game one of the doubleheader, the Tornados jumped ahead early in the first when Casen Novak raced home on a wild pitch.

After Carson Cox singled to bring home the second run of the game in the third, Leiferman came to the plate with two on and promptly lifted a pitch over the right field wall to give CTX a 5-0 advantage.

Schreiner responded quickly, scoring four runs in the top half of the fourth to make the score 5-4.

Novak helped the Tornados answer back in the bottom half, however, as he used his speed to come around from second and score on an overthrow.

With the score 6-4 in the fifth, CTX added two insurance runs thanks to back-to-back RBI singles from Ryan Clouse and Marcus Thach.

Calvin Bush closed the game out and picked up the save on the hill, tossing 3.0 innings and giving up no hits and no runs while striking out five.

The Mountaineers jumped ahead early in game two of the day, but could not add any more as starting pitcher Cruz-Garcia got out of trouble by getting a strikeout to end the inning.

Cruz-Garcia, a sophomore from Austin, Texas, picked up the victory on the mound after throwing 5.0 innings, allowing just four hits, one earned run and striking out six.

The Tornados responded immediately once again in the bottom half when Thach and Cox both came home on wild pitches to give CTX the lead.

In the fourth, the Tornados took control of the contest with six runs in the inning.

Cox started the rally off with an RBI single to bring home Jacob Stegent and Leiferman brought home another on a bases loaded walk. After Reed Carlton continued the offensive onslaught with a two-RBI single to right, Owen Hill delivered the big blow of the inning with a two-RBI double to left to make the score 8-1.

After Schreiner tacked on a run in the top half of the fifth inning, CTX once again responded, this time with three runs in the bottom of the sixth highlighted by a two-RBI single from Tanner Gibson.

Following Cruz-Garcia, Caleb Nicholson, Daniel Lewis and Michael Smith were are fantastic in relief. The trio combined to allow no runs on just one hit while striking out nine over 4.0 innings of work. 

In total, the Tornados combined to rack up 24 total strikeouts over two games on the day.

The series will conclude on Sunday with the Tornados looking to complete the sweep starting at 1:00 p.m. at Tornado Field.