Portales, N.M. -- The Texas A&M-Kingsville Javelinas split their Saturday regular season ending doubleheader with Eastern New Mexico to take three out of four in the weekend series.

   The Javelinas won the opener 8-5 behind Premont native Mario Gonzalez pitching, but lost the nightcap 6-5 after jumping out to a 4-0 lead.

   The Javelinas are 27-27 overall and 10-10 in Lone Star Conference South Division play, but more importantly, finish 25-19 against all LSC competition.

   A&M-Kingsville, Southeastern Oklahoma and Tarleton State are all fighting for the final two spots in the LSC Postseason Tournament.  

   If Southeastern Oklahoma wins Sunday at Northeastern State, it will grab one of those spots.  If they lose, the Javelinas will clinch a spot.

   Tarleton State, which played Angelo State late Saturday and will face ASU again Sunday afternoon at home, must get at least a split of the four-game series to tie the Javelinas.  The Texans own the tiebreaker over the Hogs thanks to taking three out of four games earlier this year.

   In the opener, freshman Gonzalez won his third conference game of the year by pitching seven innings and allowing seven hits and only three earned runs to improve to 4-6.

   Offensively, the Javelinas got their second six-run inning of the series, a six-run fourth to catapult them to the victory.

   A&M-Kingsville trailed 2-1 entering the fourth, but got the first two runners on base, bunted them up a base and tied the game on a sacrifice fly by Trey Karlen.  The Javelinas then took their first lead of the game on a double steal with Will Alexander stealing second and Taylor Everett stealing home.  Justin Ariki then singled to score Alexander and Chase Myrick singled Ariki to third.  The Javelinas then pulled off their second double steal of the inning as Ariki scored on a steal of home.  The Javelinas scored their fifth run of the inning on an error and the sixth on a run-scoring single by Javier Molina.

   The Javelinas added a run in the seventh on a run-scoring single by Todd Mass, but the Greyhounds pulled to within 8-5 by the ninth inning.

   Jeremy Heatley came in and retired Eastern in order in the ninth to end the game and earn his second save of the series and his sixth of the season.

   The Javelinas had an excellent chance to sweep the Greyhounds, but let a 4-0 lead get away from them and gave up the game winning run in the bottom of the seventh.

   A&M-Kingsville out-hit the Greyhounds 11-5, but five errors came back to haunt them.

   The Javelinas got two runs in the first and two in the second to jump out to the 4-0 lead.

   Myrick singled to leadoff the game and Clay Bockholt (Tuloso-Midway) followed with a double.  Molina drove in one with a ground out and Cy Williams drove in the second with a sacrifice fly.

   In the second, Myrick drove in two runs with a run scoring single.

   The Javelinas had three hits in the third, but couldn't scored thanks to a line-drive double play.

   By the seventh the Javelinas were trailing 5-4, but got a two-out run scoring single by Williams to tie the game.

   But the Javelinas made two errors in the seventh and could not turn a potential inning-ending double play as the winning run scored.