HOUSTON – Houston Christian scored five runs in the sixth inning and built an 11-5 lead through seven innings then held off a late McNeese rally to escape with a 12-10 win and take the Southland Conference baseball series from the Cowboys two-games-to-one.
The loss dropped McNeese's record to 18-10 overall and 2-4 in league play while HCU improved to 5-21 and 3-3. The Cowboys will be back in action this coming Thursday night when it begins a three-game conference series against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi.
McNeese outhit HCU 14-13 as all nine Cowboys in the lineup collected at least one hit.
Center fielder
Payton Harden, who was moved back to the No. 1 spot in the batting order, finished 2-for-6 on the day. Left fielder
Cooper Hext finished 2-for-5 with two RBIs; right fielder
Braden Duhon 2-for-4, and third baseman
Taylor Darden 3-for-5 with an RBI.
Cowboy starting pitcher
Zach Voss pitched 3.1 innings and gave up three runs on three hits and struckout four batters.
Christian Vega, the second of five pitchers for McNeese on the day, was hit with the loss after allowing six runs on four hits in two innings of work.
HCU catcher Dylan LaRue had the hot bat, going 4-for-5 with three RBIs.
The Huskies led 11-5 heading into the eighth inning when McNeese put together a 5-run inning to cut the margin to 11-10.
Duhon began the frame with an infield single then advanced to second on a passed ball. After
Chase Keeton reached on a throwing error, Darden singled through the left side to score Duhon and cut the HCU lead to 11-6.
Following a Huskie pitching change and the first out of the inning,
Brad Burckel singled in Keeton to make it an 11-7 game.
Josh Leslie followed with an RBI single then a Hext single scored Burckel to make it 11-9.
Tré Obregon III hit a sac fly that scored Leslie and Hext stole second to get into scoring position as the tying run, but HCU was able to get out of the inning leading 11-10.
HCU added a run in the bottom of the eighth to lead 12-10 and in the ninth, McNeese put together a two-out rally with Darden hitting a double and Harden an infield single to put runners on the corners, but the Huskies were able to get a lineout to end the game.
