SAN ANTONIO – Tarleton took the series at Dickson Stadium after sweeping Saturday's doubleheader, capped off by a game-ending out at home plate on the potential game-tying run in the nightcap.
 
"It was a really good weekend for us," said head coach Bryan Conger. "We got to compete against an excellent program and we got the opportunity to learn a lot about ourselves. We are really proud of the guys and how they handled adversity all weekend. These were three really good college baseball games played by two good baseball teams."
   
A leadoff home run from Francisco Rodriguez in the top of the fifth broke a 4-4 tie and was the first of five unanswered runs over the last three innings for the Texans as Tarleton took the second game of the series to begin Saturday's twin bill.
 
Tarleton got things going in a hurry as the Texans' Blake Adams led off the game with his first home run of the season. After back-to-back outs, Tarleton sparked a two-out rally when a walk, a single into right, and a wild pitch led to the second run of the inning before Luis Rivas drove home Dylan Lemons with an RBI double and a 3-0 Tarleton lead in the first.
 
The Texans added one more in the second on an RBI single from Jake Hasbrouck for Tarleton's fourth run of the game while the Rattlers scored two in the first and two in the fourth to head into the fifth tied at 4-4.
 
Rodriguez immediately untied it to lead off the fifth. From there, the Texans continued to sail.
 
Tarleton scored two more in the sixth on a sacrifice fly and a bases load walk by Rodriguez before tacking on their final two runs in the seventh on an RBI single by Lemons and a sacrifice fly to put the Texans up 9-4 in the final frame.
 
Evan Pontley earned his second straight win with four innings of work while Hunter Houston (0.2), Will Blanchard (0.0), and Eli McLane (0.2) came on to face the next seven batter. With one out in the sixth, closer Eddie Avila came on and recorded a five-out save with three strikeouts.
 
Lemons was the only Texan with a multi-hit performance while Adams, Rodriguez, Hasbrouck, Rivas, and Jose Reyes rounded out the Tarleton seven-hit attack.
   
The Rattlers made a late ninth-inning surge but Tarleton's Jose Reyes hosed the potential game-tying run at the plate to end the game and lift the Texans to a sweep of Saturday's doubleheader and a series win in San Antonio.
 
Tarleton was swinging right out of the gate as Hasbrouck delivered a 2-RBI single to get the Texans on the board first. Two batters later, Dylan Lemons brought him – and himself – across the plate with his third home run of the season for a 4-0 Tarleton lead.
 
The next inning, Blake Adams followed suit with a solo home run to extend the Tarleton lead to 5-0 after two.
 
St. Mary's clawed back with six runs spread over the next five innings while the Texans only added one on an RBI single by Austin Call in the fifth to set up a tie game at 6-6 heading into the eighth inning.
 
Tarleton pulled away with a three-run eighth inning when Adams reached on an error that brought home Hunter Seales to give the Texans the lead at 7-6. Rodriguez followed up with an RBI double, which was immediately followed by another RBI double – this time by Hasbrouck – for a 9-6 Tarleton lead. The Texans took that lead into the bottom of the ninth.
 
Colby Fowler got the first Rattler of the ninth inning out with a strikeout, but St. Mary's wouldn't go away as the Rattlers finally got to Fowler for a run before he gave way to Hunter Houston with one away. Houston got a fly out, which led to a second run on the sacrifice, before getting a pop-up to shortstop.
 
Reyes mishandled the pop fly and allowed the runner to reach, but threw out the potential tying run at the plate to cap off the Texan win.
 
The top three of the Tarleton lineup – Adams, Rodriguez, and Hasbrouck – combined to go 7-for-14 with seven runs scored and five RBIs. The 4-5-6 spots in the Tarleton lineup each had one hit to round out the scoring for Tarleton. Fowler earned the win for the Texans from the bump as the reliever tossed 2.1 innings of relief before giving way to Houston, who earned the save by getting two outs.
 
Tarleton will return to action against these same Rattlers next weekend to kick off the Houston Winter Invitational at Minute Maid Park at 10 a.m.