PORTALES, N.M. – After coming into Saturday with a 1-0 series edge over St. Mary's, Eastern New Mexico dropped two Friday afternoon contests to the nationally ranked Rattlers. Game one was a close affair with the final score going in favor of StMU, 3-2. The second game finished, 15-6.

Game One StMU 3, ENMU 2
No. 18 St. Mary's continued to struggle against Eastern New Mexico early in the first contest. A strong start on the bump by Cole Lancaster was a major reason for that. He went 5.1 innings and allowed just two runs on four hits and two walks. He was also supported by a defense that made several impressive plays all around. He kept the Rattlers scoreless over the first five innings, but then the sixth inning caused Eastern some trouble.

"We missed out on a few opportunities and left too many on base," said head coach Riley Price after the doubleheader. "Cole (Lancaster) had a great, phenomenal performance."

Offensively, Eastern New Mexico scored a run in the third and one in the fifth. The third saw Eiji Sawamura walk, Cole Curtis single, and Adrien Martin clean up with an RBI-single all with no outs. The games first score did not faze StMU as they closed out the frame with three consecutive outs.

The fifth inning started fairly similarly from the third. Sawamura walked and Cole Curtis followed with a single to advance Sawamura to third. Two batters later, Sawamura came home on a sac-fly from Jake Willerup. It marks the fifth multi-run game of the season for the Japan native.

As mentioned, all was going well defensively for ENMU until the sixth. Two-straight one-out singles allowed by Lancaster forced the Eastern coaching staff to call on Alexander Sanderson for relief. Immediately, StMU tied the game with a two-RBI single. Sanderson would give up another single afterwards before earning a seven-pitch strikeout. With two outs, the Rattlers loaded the bases via a four-pitch walk. On the next pitch, ENMU got out of the jam with a flyout to close the frame.

St. Mary's pulled ahead in the seventh. With one-out, Ashton Beaird gave the Rattlers the lead with a big time RBI-triple. That put ENMU in a must-score situation in the bottom of the inning. StMU was able to close out the game by allowing one hit batter and finishing out with a clean frame to pick up their 27th win of the season. Cole Curtis led the team with three hits. Adrien Martin, Jake Willerup, and Logan Martin all registered a hit in the game.

Game Two StMU 15, ENMU 6
From a low scoring contest to a high scoring battle was in store for both teams in the second game of the doubleheader. St. Mary's tied a season-best 19 hits in a 15-6 win.

The Rattlers went to Gabe Cook on the mound. He came into the day with a 4-0 record and had proven his ability to strikeout batters and limit batters from getting hits. He was quite effective against Eastern as he allowed three runs on four hits and two walks. He had five strikeouts.

StMU's only ineffective pitcher was Kaleb Gauna who went 0.1 innings and gave up three hits and two walks while allowing two runs.

Braeden Brown closed out the game going 1.2 innings and giving up just a solo homer in the ninth inning.

Eastern New Mexico struggled to score throughout the game. They were led by Eiji Sawamura and Nicholas Miller who both had two hits. Miller was responsible for a double and triple along with three RBI's. Isaiah Figueroa was impressive as he found ways to get on base. He had a single and two walks in the outing.

Errors proved costly for Eastern. Cole Curtis, Isaiah Figueroa, and Logan Martin all had an error.

Charlie Pierson got the start for ENMU. He gave up eight runs (seven earned) along with 10 hits and a walk and hit batter. Maddux Edmonson faired okay in relief as he went 3.1 innings allowing five runs (four earned) on eight hits.

St. Mary's was guided by six different players who had multi-hit games. Blake Allen had four hits in his leadoff slot. He scored two runs and drove in two runs. Ryan Alaniz and Matt Gauna had three hits each.

Both teams will meet again tomorrow for the getaway game. First pitch is slated for 1 p.m. MT.