BELTON, Texas – Trinity's ninth-ranked baseball team rallied to take a 5-4 road win over the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor on Tuesday evening, led by a pair of home runs from Colt Harris (Katy, Texas / Houston Christian).

The Tigers improved to 28-9 on the season with the win, which also earned the team a regular season series split with the Crusaders (22-14). UMHB handed Trinity a 6-3 loss in San Antonio in early March, though Trinity is 23-6 since that time.

Harris connected for his second multi-homer game of the season, putting Trinity on the board with a two-run shot in the sixth. His solo homer in the eighth broke a 4-4 tie and wound up being the game-winning hit in the narrow victory. Harris finished 2-for-3 with two runs scored and three RBI.

Mary Hardin-Baylor jumped in front 4-0 after just two innings and looked like they would run away with the game against the nationally-ranked Tigers. Instead, Trinity settled in and held the home team scoreless over the final two innings to set up the comeback. The first homer from Harris made it 4-2 in the sixth, then Trinity scored two unearned runs in the seventh to set up the go-ahead dinger in the eighth.

Relievers Jack Briese (Danville, Ky. / Boyle County) and Jonathan Newman (Pearland, Texas / Pearland) pitched four shutout innings to close the game, while Zach Balbin (San Marino, Calif. / San Marino) gave up just one run on three hits over 3.1 innings of work. The trio of relievers combined for four strikeouts and allowed only one walk. Newman picked up the win and improved to 5-0 this season.

Jack Baker (Missouri City, Texas / Ridge Point) joined Harris as the only Tiger players to have more than one hit in the game, going 2-for-4 with one run scored. The Trinity middle infielders combined for four of the team's seven hits in the game, scoring three of the five runs.

Trinity stranded a pair of runners in the top of the first inning, but UMHB got the lead with a two-out solo home run in the bottom half of the inning. The Crusaders drew three walks in the second inning, but needed a couple of two-out hits to bring in three runs to take a 4-0 lead.

The Tigers put runners on in almost every inning, but failed to break through until the sixth. After the first two batters got out, Alex Monson (Houston, Texas / Memorial) drew a two-out walk to bring up Harris for his first home run that cut the lead in half (4-2).

UMHB got a strikeout that should have ended the seventh inning for Trinity, but a passed ball allowed the batter to reach base and also resulted in a run coming home as well. The game was then tied on a balk for the second unearned run of the inning.

Newman relieved Briese with one out and two runners on base in the seventh, getting a fly ball out and a strikeout to escape with the game still tied. Monson once again reached ahead of Harris in the top of the eighth, but he was picked off to clear the bases. That meant the Harris roundtripper was a solo homer that put the Tigers up 5-4. Newman gave up a leadoff single in the eighth, then retired the final six batters in order to put the finishing touches on the Trinity victory.

Up Next

Trinity is headed to Shreveport, Louisiana, for a three-game Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference series against Centenary College. The Tigers and Gents hold the top two spots in the SCAC standings coming into the weekend. Game one of the series will be Friday, April 26, at 6:00 p.m. The teams finish with a Saturday afternoon doubleheader that begins at 1:00 p.m.