STEPHENVILLE – Tarleton State extended its winning streak to a season-high five games with a doubleheader sweep over Eastern New Mexico on Friday afternoon at the Cecil Ballow Complex. Both wins for the Texans came in one-run games, with solid late-game pitching and timely hitting lifting Tarleton.

  
The seventh inning summed up the Tarleton Baseball team's winning streak of late—find a way to win.
 
Tied 2-2 going into the bottom of the seventh, the Texans had three men reach base without getting a hit. Kevin Meredith was hit by a pitch to lead off the seventh and advanced to third after the Greyhounds' pitcher fielded Landon Merka's sacrifice bunt and errantly threw it to center field. Zach Fleet followed in a pinch-hitting spot and worked one of the six walks issued by Eastern New Mexico to load the bases with no outs.
 
After continuing to apply the pressure on Eastern New Mexico, Meredith scored the winning run on a walk-off wild pitch to secure Game 1.
 
Meredith has a team-leading 22 runs scored this season, which ranks fifth in the Lone Star Conference.
 
The Texans are coming off a series win at home over Lone Star Conference-leading A&M-Kingsville where they took three of the last four games and carried the momentum into a four-game series against Eastern New Mexico, the last-place team in the LSC.
 
Matt Herrick, who made his eighth start for Tarleton, got a no decision, but his valiant effort on the mound left the Texans in position to win the game late.
 
Herrick threw five innings while giving up five hits and striking out three. Herrick has gone three straight starts of at least five innings pitched and only allowing two runs, with the Texans going 5-3 in games he starts.
 
With the wind blowing 20 mph in from center field, Herrick used the stream to his advantage and forced the Greyhounds into nine routine fly outs.
 
The sophomore right-hander took a 1-0 lead into the fourth inning before surrendering the first run to Eastern New Mexico.
 
Tarleton got on the board in the bottom of the second after Jonathan Schmitz was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded to score Elijah Christenson. Christenson's two-out walk jump-started the Texans' offensive push.
 
Although Schmitz didn't record a hit in the opener, the junior catcher from College Station did what he does best—get on base. Schmitz leads the Lone Star Conference with a .527 on-base percentage this season, 63 percentage points ahead of second place.
 
The pitchers' duel carried over to the sixth inning with the score tied at 1.  Troyal Yosko relived Herrick after the Greyhounds had two men on and nobody out to start the inning. The Greyhounds managed one run on three hits in the sixth inning to take a 2-1 lead. Two of the three sixth-inning hits for Eastern New Mexico came on infield bunts.
 
Peter McMahon's one-out double to left center in the sixth inning drove home Christenson to tie the game at 2.
 
McMahon and Matt Olive, the eight- and nine-hole hitters for Tarleton, went a combined 3-for-3 at the plate.
 
McMahon reached base all three times in Game 1, finishing 1-for-1 with a walk and a hit by pitch.
 
Olive led the Texans with two hits in the opener, going 2-for-2, but no at-bat was bigger than his sacrifice bunt in the sixth that advanced Mitch Williams to later score the tying run.
 
Yosko (1-0) pitched two scoreless innings, lowering his ERA to 2.61, to earn his first win of the season for the Texans. The junior right-hander worked out of a seventh-inning jam to get three ground outs to end the game after Eastern New Mexico had the tying run at third with two outs.

  
Trevor Renfro went eight innings and struck out eight—both season highs—in Tarleton's 4-3 win over Eastern New Mexico in the doubleheader finale Friday afternoon.
 
The junior right-hander from Richardson started the season out of the bullpen where he made five appearances. Head coach Bryan Conger has eased Renfro into the starting rotation where he has started three straight.
 
After Alex Humphreys' one-out single in the fourth, Kevin Meredith tripled to the right-center field wall to plate Humphreys and break a scoreless game. Meredith, who went 1-for-4 with two runs scored, has a team-leading 23 RBIs, ranking second in the Lone Star Conference.
 
Landon Merka, the reigning Lone Star Conference Hitter of the Week, continued his torrid streak at the plate with a two-out double to right field that scored Meredith for a 2-0 lead through four. Merka is hitting .412 in his last five games—all resulting in wins for the Texans.
 
Jonathan Schmitz's fourth-inning single moved the catcher's streak to 15 straight games of reaching base. Schmitz added another single in the seventh to finish 2-for-4 and leads the Lone Star Conference with a .411 batting average.
 
Elijah Christenson's one-out double in the seventh scored Meredith for a 3-0 Tarleton lead.
 
During the Texans' scoring spree in the middle innings, Renfro was in the midst of posting shutdown innings on the mound for Tarleton. Renfro retired 10 straight Greyhounds between the fourth and sixth inning.
 
With the Texans leading 3-0, Renfro carried a two-hit shutout into the seventh inning where the Greyhounds broke through and managed to score two runs.
 
Evan Robinson reached base in the seventh on a fielder's choice. With a lanky left-hander throwing a slow-bending curveball on the mound for Eastern New Mexico, Robinson was able to steal second and third base. Robinson's aggressive base running paid dividends when the senior scored on a wild pitch that proved to be more than just an insurance run for Tarleton.
 
Conger sent Renfro back out to the mound for the eighth inning after the Greyhounds cut Tarleton's lead to a one-run game.
 
With his pitch count over 100, Renfro responded with a three-up, three-down inning and struck out the final two Greyhound hitters he faced. Of his eight strikeouts, Renfro registered five swinging Ks, a reflection of the movement and control he had all afternoon on the mound.
 
Hunter Houston entered the 4-2 game for Tarleton in the ninth and sat down the first two Greyhound hitters he faced. After a two-out single and a walk, Justin Paul singled to right field for Eastern New Mexico to score one and make it a one-run game again. Houston (0.57 ERA) forced a groundout on the next batter to earn his third save of the season.
 
The Texans moved to 14-13 on the season, the first time being over .500 since March 15, and 8-9 in the Lone Star Conference. Tarleton and Eastern New Mexico finish the four-game series with a Saturday doubleheader starting at 1 p.m.