- Box Score

STEPHENVILLE - The No. 25 Tarleton Texans took the first of a three-game series from Northeastern State with a score of 8-6 in Stephenville.

Tarleton (25-7, 15-6) scored three runs on a Mark Jeffery homerun in the bottom of the eighth inning to claim the Lone Star Conference victory over NSU (5-24, 4-21).

Landon McCall, who singled and made it all the way to third on a throwing error, drew first blood for the Texans in the first inning when Ethan Stuckly hit a sac fly to left field.

The Texans' bats stayed hot when in the second, Kapple singled to shallow center field on a full count with two outs to drive in Travis Hayes to make the score 2-0

Stuckly scored in the third after stealing second and advancing to third on a throwing error followed by a Junior Dishmey single.

Ryan Salt, who seemed to be losing his command slightly, was helped out in the top of the fourth on a beautiful double play started by Dishmey at third that went around the horn.

In the top of the fifth, Northeastern State got on the board when Salt hit a batter with the bases loaded to send home Cale Replogle. This was immediately followed by a sac fly off the bat of David Zavala, which allowed Brandon Espinal to score. Noah Ringenberger then hit a two-RBI triple, scoring Mike Stone and Chad Davidson. Jake Sowell came in for relief of Salt and got Daniel Skelly to ground to shortstop, who then missed the play and let Ringenberger score. Sowell then cleaned up the mess by inducing a groundball right back to him to stop the bleeding after Northeastern scored five runs to make the score 5-3 to end the top of the fifth in favor of the Riverhawks.

Travis Hayes then stuck back in the bottom of the fifth by tying the game for the Texans with a two run homerun to make it 5-5.

In the top of the seventh, Replogle hit a sac bunt up the first baseline to drive in Greg Jackson for the Riverhawks to reclaim the lead at 6-5.

However, in the bottom of the eighth inning, Jeffery crushed a 2-2 pitch over the left field fence for a three-run homerun, driving in Kapple and Dishmey, to take back the lead by a score of 8-6.

Ryan Turner came into the game for the top of the ninth inning and did his job. He struck out the first batter before striking out the second, who reached on a wild pitch. Turner then induced a ground ball to end the game on a double play to give the Texans an 8-6 victory.