Eastern New Mexico Baseball | 03/18/2016 | David Norton

PORTALES, N.M. — Despite a Wesley Jordan grand slam for the Eastern New Mexico baseball team,  the team's first of the season, the Texas A&M-Kingsville offense was too much Friday, as they would take the first game in the series 19-9.

The Greyhounds moved to 8-15 on the season and 1-8 in Lone Star Conference play.  The Javelinas are now 14-6 and 6-3 in the LSC, sitting in second place tied with Angelo State.

Jordan, whose grand slam was his second homerun of the season, led the team with two hits and five RBIs.  Justin Paul recorded three hits and two RBIs in five at bats, while Chris Padilla went 2-for-3 from the plate.

Greyhound head coach David Gomez said, "It was good to see Wes Jordan have a day, he got a hold of one there for the grand slam and put us back in the game.  Padilla is kind of having a breakout last couple of weeks as well, so good job for both of them tonight."

Nick DeArmond, the pitcher of record for the Hounds, gave up a quick run in the first inning but then settled down and threw two shutout innings.  Giving up one in the fourth, DeArmond found himself in trouble in the fifth inning where a combination of Javelina offense combined with an ENMU error saw the starter's day end.  He finished throwing 4.1 innings while giving up five earned runs and striking out a season-high six batters.

"Jordan put us back in the game there with those four runs, but unfortunately we just didn't have the arms there at the end.  Hopefully we can get some better pitching tomorrow and keep our offense rolling," said Gomez.

Eastern finished the game with 11 hits compared to Kingsville's 16.  The difference in the game came on the defensive end for the Hounds, who recorded five errors and walked a season-high 12 batters, the fourth most in a single game in the team's history.

Eastern will resume their series with the Javelinas Saturday for a doubleheader.  The first game is scheduled for 1 p.m. (MT).