Photo of Tyler Betts, who was 4-for-6 in Saturday’s win, by Luke Zayas/True To The Cru
ALPINE, Texas–The postseason has arrived. UMHB Baseball closed its 2024 regular season on Saturday afternoon in far West Texas, taking the decisive Game 3 of a weekend series at Sul Ross State, 13-5.
The Cru dropped Game 1 on Friday, but came back to win the final two games of the series, closing their regular season with a 24-15 overall record. UMHB will be the No. 3 seed at next week’s ASC Tournament in Marshall, Texas.
The regular season, which began with a nine-game win streak, turned out to be one of the most successful in recent memory. UMHB has already tallied the second-most wins in a season in the Mike Stawski era, and has the best regular season record of any team in program history since 2014. The Crusaders need just one win to tie for the third-most wins in a single-season in the program’s D-III era, and are four wins away from tying the UMHB record for victories (28 in 2008).
A six-run first inning certainly gave the visitors from Belton a spark in Saturday’s series finale, as 11 batters stepped to the plate, producing six hits. Cameron Talburt led off with a hit-by-pitch, followed by a well-placed double to right center field by Tyler Betts. Talburt scored on the very next at-bat, as Carson Hagan’s RBI groundout gave UMHB a 1-0 lead.
With two outs, Riley Bender drew a walk. Then came a base hit from Kaden deBerardinis, who scored the go-ahead run in the 10th inning of Game 2. Elijah Rodriguez followed suit with a single, as this one also went through the right side of the infield, and brought Bender across the plate. Chris Perez delivered the next single, Cline added one of his own, and Talburt capped it off with a double to right field. When all was said and done, UMHB had recorded five straight hits, scoring four runs in that span.
The 6-0 advantage put UMHB in a comfortable position, though SRSU’s three-run second-inning cut the lead in half. A fourth-inning RBI single from A Hernandez brought the Lobos within two runs of tying the score, before UMHB put up four runs between the fifth and sixth innings. The first four batters of the sixth inning reached base, highlighted by Bender’s two-run double to left field that scored Hagan and Betts.
Three more runs between the eighth and ninth innings closed out a remarkable day at the plate for UMHB, who ended up with 20 hits in the victory, a new season-high for The Cru. It marked the most hits in a single game for the Crusaders since April 9, 2022, when they had 22 in a 24-7 win over Concordia.
Betts led the charge, tying his career-high with four hits in a 4-for-6 performance along with two runs scored. Bender, making just his third start in the month of April, went 2-for-4 with two runs scored and three RBIs, while deBerardinis was 3-for-5 with a pair of runs. Six UMHB players had double-digit hit totals in Saturday’s victory.
ASC Tournament at a glance
With the conclusion of the regular season, the ASC Tournament bracket is now set, with tournament play beginning on Thursday on the campus of ETBU in Marshall, Texas.
UMHB, as the No. 3 seed, faces sixth-seeded Hardin-Simmons on Thursday in the opening game of the tournament at 11 a.m. CT. HSU enters with a 14-24 record, and a 9-15 mark in ASC play. UMHB took the regular season series in Belton, two games to one, on April 5-6.
The winner of that matchup moves on to an 11 a.m. contest against No. 2 seed UT-Dallas on Friday. The loser plays an elimination game on Thursday evening at 5:00 p.m. against the loser of McMurry/Concordia.
For the complete bracket, and to track the tournament as it unfolds, visit ascsports.org. Additionally, we will have ASC Tournament coverage on truetothecru.com as well as on X/Twitter and Facebook (@TrueToTheCru).
