CONROE – It was a tale of two games on the opening day of the Arkansas Tech Winter Invitational at The Scrapyards Friday for the Tarleton season opener, but the No. 21 Texans found a way to scratch out a pair of wins.
 
Tarleton survived a pitching duel 4-2 in the season opener before pounding out 11 runs on 13 hits in the second game to spoil Harding's debut outing of the season.
   
Newcomer Hallie Saintignan sparked the offense from the leadoff spot in support of Jordan Withrow's first pitching win of the season against Minnesota-Duluth.
 
The Bulldogs struck first with a solo home run in the second inning and took a 1-0 lead into the top of the fifth before back-to-back bunt singles from Jessica Lee and Saintignan set up the Texans with two on and no outs.
 
Morgan Medford, a true freshman making her collegiate debut, made her presence felt with a one-out single up the middle to score Lee and Saintignan, who slid around a tag at the plate to give the Texans a 2-1 edge.
 
After two more shutout innings from Withrow, Tarleton tacked on two more runs in the top of the seventh on an inside-the-park home run from Saintignan and a sacrifice fly from Destiny Crumpley to extend the lead to 4-1. Despite a run from the Bulldogs in the seventh, Withrow polished off the complete-game win.
 
Saintignan went 3-4 at the dish in her Tarleton debut while Georgia Capell, Medford, and Crumpley boasted two-hit performances of their own. Shelby Carter, Kadyn Kirkpatrick, Kristen Zuehl, and Lee had one hit each in the 13-hit team effort.
 
Withrow earned the win with seven innings of work while striking out 11.
   
In the final game of opening day, Tarleton broke a 5-5 tie in a big way by exploding for a six spot in the fifth inning to knock off Harding 11-5.
 
Freshman Shelby Carter drove in her first career RBI with a two-run double in the first inning to put Tarleton up early. After another shutout inning from Tristan Bridges in the circle, the Texans tacked on another in the second on an RBI grounder from Hallie Saintignan for a 3-0 lead after two.
 
Harding answered back with two runs in the third and fourth and one in the top of the fifth while Tarleton added one each in the third and fourth on a Harding error and a RBI single from Carter – her third run driven in for the game – to send things into the bottom of the fifth tied at 5-5.
 
Kristen Zuehl obviously had no interest in a tie game as she led off the bottom of the fifth with her first home run of the season to give the Texans the lead for good and start the offensive barrage. Tarleton got two more RBI singles from Georgia Capell and Destiny Crumpley and a sacrifice fly from Morgan Ling before Kadyn Kirkpatrick's two-run triple capped off the inning.
 
Julia Wernet, who earned the win in the circle, closed out the game with two shutout frames.
 
Carter and Zuehl led the way with three hits each while Crumpley and Lee had two-hit performances. Capell, Morgan Medford and Kirkpatrick rounded out the offense with one-hit each.
 
Wernet earned the win with four innings of relief, over which she allowed one run on five hits. Bridges threw the first three innings and struck out two.
 
Tarleton will return to action tomorrow at 10 a.m. against Henderson State and then square off with No. 14 Southern Arkansas at 12:30 in their first NFCA Top-25 showdown of the season.