The Crusaders were ineffective on the mound and Concordia Texas cleaned house, wrapping up a three-game sweep of UMHB with 11-3 and 13-7 victories Saturday afternoon at Red Murff Field.
UMHB (25-10 overall, 11-7 American Southwest Conference) entered the series as the top team in the ASC West Division, holding the inside track in the race to host both the first round and championship rounds of the conference tournament.
But the Crusaders came out the back end of the three-game set in a three-way tie for the West’s final three tournament slots with only one regular-season series remaining.
UMHB - tied with Hardin-Simmons (22-14, 11-7) and Concordia (23-13, 11-7) - will take on Howard Payne (14-22, 8-10) in Brownwood starting on Friday.
Texas Lutheran (19-18, 9-9), which is also in the hunt, will host HSU. Concordia will be at home against Schreiner (11-24, 8-10), while first-place McMurry (23-13, 13-5) visits woeful Sul Ross State (4-28, 1-17).
“This changes everything,” Crusaders coach Micah Wells said. “We may have gotten a little ahead ourselves. Instead of going to Howard Payne trying to maintain home-field advantage throughout the tournament, we’re going out there just trying to make sure that we get in.
“This definitely changes the outlook for next weekend. It will definitely change our focus throughout this week of practice.”
The Crusaders’ undoing was their pitching. After UMHB hurlers yielded 12 hits, issued two walks and hit three batters in Friday’s 8-2 loss, things got even worse on Saturday.
Game 1 starter Zack Tumlinson (3-1) walked seven batters and hit two. He was lifted with the bases loaded in the fifth inning for Adrian Montoya, who walked in another run and gave up Tom Williams’ grand slam.
After the Tornados posted seven runs in the fifth, Wells dressed down his team in front of its dugout.
“I was just trying to get them to understand that we’ve been in every game when we’ve kept our focus,” he said. “But if we keep giving opponents things for free, then it’s going to be very difficult to accomplish the things that we want to do.”
The pitching woes continued in the finale, overshadowing the offensive performance of Earnest Pena, who homered three times in a stretch of four at-bats.
Pena - the No. 9 hitter in UMHB’s order - hit a solo shot to cap the Crusaders’ scoring in the opener and another solo blast to get them on the board in the third inning of the finale.
After flying out in the fifth, he opened the seventh by belting his third homer of the day over the wall in center field, making him the first UMHB player since James Thompson in 1998 to hit 10 homers in a season.
But Pena’s performance was wasted by shoddy pitching.
Game 2 starter Jared Hopper (2-3) gave up eight hits, walked two batters and hit two in four innings. Josh Welch surrendered six hits, a walk and also plunked two Tornados in three frames, and Les Sarles was touched for two hits and two walks in the final two innings.
“We were very tentative on the mound,” Wells said. “When the other team keeps getting chances to swing the bat one time and score multiple runs, then you’re not going to win. And we lost three ballgames.”
edrennan@temple-telegram.com
