KINGSVILLE, TEXAS – The Tarleton State baseball team took out Texas A&M-Kingsville on Friday night at Nolan Ryan Field, 6-3 in Lone Star Conference action behind the strong pitching of Nathan Lewis. (box score)

The Texans (8-2, 5-2) spotted Lewis a run in the top of the first inning when Landon McCall singled to lead off the game and eventually pulled off a straight steal of home. They added two more runs in the fourth inning and a solo home run by Mark Jeffery in the sixth. In the seventh, they took advantage of some poor defense by the Javelinas (6-4, 4-3) to score two more times.

Lewis allowed an infield single in the top of the first inning and then did not allow another hit until the seventh inning. It appeared that he was on his way to a shutout when the Hoggies finally got to him in the eighth inning. After striking out the first batter of the inning he gave up a double to Adrian Williams (Victoria/Memorial HS), a single to Cash Barker (Spring/Klein HS) and a double to A.J. Hecker (Orange/LSU-Eunice) that broke up the shutout.

Relief pitcher Ryan Turner came on and struck out the first batter he faced for the Texans, but then Jerry Rodriguez (Canovanas, P.R./North Lake) came through with a two-out, two-run single for the Javelinas. From there, Turner retired the next four batters to finish off the game.

Lewis improved to 1-1 on the season after allowing five hits, three runs and one walk while striking out eight. McCall had three hits, two stolen bases and scored twice while Jeffery and Tim Rainey each had a pair of hits.

David de Leon (Corpus Christi/Calallen HS) fell to 1-2 on the season for the Javelinas. He allowed four hits, four runs and three walks while striking out a season high 10 batters. Jonathon Escobar (Edinburg/Edinburg North HS) and Andrew Longoria (Corpus Christi/Rockport-Fulton HS) each pitched a scoreless inning in relief. Chris Ballou (Houston/Houston Christian HS) extended his hitting streak to nine games after his single in the seventh inning.

The two teams will meet for a doubleheader on Saturday starting at 1 p.m.
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