The Howard Payne University baseball team won their first home game of the season 7-3 over Arlington Baptist College Tuesday afternoon at Don Shepard Park.

The Jackets got off to a strong start with three runs in the bottom of the first and one in the second. After that, Billy Ray Cruz, the Jackets starting pitcher would shut down the Patriots offense, throwing six scoreless innings, giving up only three hits, with two strike outs.

The Jackets first run came in the first inning when Kevin Young singled to left field and brought home Taylor Zambreski. The next came off an error by the Patriots short stop and scored two, Young and Ben Burtler. In the second inning, Zambreski would score Alan Sailors on a sacrifice fly to right field.
From that point, neither team would score anything until the bottom of the seventh when the Jackets designated hitter, Ben Butler would smack a home run to left field putting the Jackets up 5-0. In the eighth, two more would come through, off another Zambreski sacrifice fly.

Arlington Baptist would try to mount a comeback late scoring three runs in the top of the ninth, but it was too late, as Will Hood would stop the bleeding and get the Jackets their first win of the year.

Howard Payne goes to 1-1 overall, while the Arlington Baptist falls to 1-4 overall.

The Jackets next game is at 6:00 p.m. Friday, Feb. 25 against the University of Texas at Tyler in Tyler for their first American Southwest Conference game on the season.