ABILENE, Texas – Freshman Kannon Baird pitched five and one-third innings of scoreless baseball in his first collegiate start, leading Hardin-Simmons to a 7-5 win over Arlington Baptist on Tuesday night at Hunter Field.

The Cowboy offense, which entered the game leading the nation in hits, pounded out 13 more, including six doubles.

HSU scored a pair of runs in the second inning on a sacrifice fly by Rayshawn Riley and a Benji Fielder RBI single.

HSU added to the lead in the fifth inning when Justin Blancaflor, the nation's RBI leader, had an RBI double. Gavin Bruning had a two-run double, and Paul Samaripa added an RBI double, making the score 6-0.

Hunter Trojacek added an RBI single in the sixth inning to give HSU a 7-1 lead before the Patriots began to battle back. Larry Hicks had an RBI single in the seventh and another run scored on an error. J.J. Martinez had an RBI groundout and another run scored on a wild pitch, narrowing the score to 7-5.

Samaripa extended his hitting streak to 14 with three hits on the night, including a pair of doubles.

Baird improved to 2-0 on the year. Jace Martinez, who missed the entire season after offseason surgery, made his first appearance and worked two-thirds of an inning. Ian Bamburg worked the seventh allowing a run. Grant Winkle allowed two runs in the eighth inning and Garrett Keller worked a scoreless ninth with two strikeouts for his first career save.

Tony Fuentes fell to 2-1 on the year for the Patriots. He allowed five runs over four and two-third innings. Hector Cavazos and J.P. Mendoza had two hits each for ABU.
HSU improved to 13-9 on the year and ABU fell to 9-11.

The Cowboys will be off this weekend and return to action next Tuesday at 6 p.m. at home against Schreiner.
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