Box Score 1 | Box Score 2 PLAINVIEW, Texas – McMurry University's baseball team came within a half-inning of sweeping a doubleheader from Wayland Baptist, but instead had to settle for a split at Wilder Field. The War Hawks (27-8) won the opener, 5-2, before dropping game two, 10-9, after permitting three unearned runs in the bottom of the ninth to the Pioneers (30-19).
 
In the opener, McM junior pitcher Ben Bates went the full seven innings to improve his personal record to 8-1 on the year. Bates allowed nine hits and the two earned runs. He struck out seven and did not walk a batter.
 
In the bottom of the first, Ricky Garcia's RBI single drove home Christian Simmons, who had opened the game with a single. McM missed a chance for a big inning, eventually leaving the bases full in the first.
 
WBU got both of tis runs off of Bates in the fourth. The Pioneers slapped a total of five hits in the frame, taking the 2-1 lead.
 
Pioneers' starter Josh Alexander matched Bates, keeping the War Hawks at bay. Until the fifth inning, that is. With one out and runners on second and third, Patrick Adams blasted an 0-1 pitch from Alexander over the left field fence.  The very next batter – Zack Hagan – deposited a 1-2 offering over the wall in left-center field for his team-leading seventh homer, putting McM on top, 5-2.
 
Bates permitted just a single the last two frames to preserve the win for McMurry.
 
Hagan went 2-for-4 to pace McM's eight-hit attack.
 
Game two looked like the game that the War Hawks were headed to a loss early on, before bouncing back to put itself in position to win, only to end up losing. WBU led 7-1 after just three innings of play, but McM would respond with eight unanswered runs over the next five innings to lead 9-7 heading into the ninth inning.
 
McM failed to add any runs in their half of the ninth. In the bottom of the inning, the Pioneers would push across three unearned runs – after a pair of McMurry miscues – to take the 10-9 comeback win.
 
Ricky Lopez (1-2), the fifth McM pitcher of the day, absorbed the loss after 1 2/3 innings of work. Starter Tyler Jenkins gave up six earned runs in 2 1/3 innings pitched.
 
McMurry's top three batters in the order – Simmons, Adams and Cody Howard – had six of the team's 12 hits. Simmons was 2-for-5, Adams 2-for-4 and Howard 2-for-5. Ben Douglas was 1-for-2, with a two-run homer in the fourth and a bases-loaded walk in the War Hawks' three-run sixth.
 
McM will play at Angelo State University on Monday evening in a single game in San Angelo. The two teams split a doubleheader to open the season in Abilene.