ABILENE – The Brownwood Lions dropped their first two games in the Abilene ISD Invitational baseball tournament on Thursday, falling to Class 5A Abilene Cooper, 15-3, ahead of a 7-1 setback against Class 5A Copperas Cove.

Versus Cooper, the Lions opened a 3-0 lead in the top of the first inning, but gave up six runs in the bottom of the opening frame, eight more in the second and a final run in the third inning.

Jack Field, Mason Milwee and Durham Brown combined to allow 15 earned runs on 12 hits with three strikeouts and seven walks. The Lions defense committed two errors behind them.

Offensively, the Lions garnered nine hits – a pair from Austin Pittman and one each by Antonio Ybarra, Austin Wright, Robbie Robinson, Evan Escobar, Dario Rodriguez, Michael Badillo and Field. Robinson and Field recorded RBIs for Brownwood, which drew only one walk and the Cooper defense did not commit an error.

Against Copperas Cove, the Lions fell behind 1-0 in the bottom of the second inning and drew even at 1 in the top of the third. But the Bulldogs immediately responded with six runs in the bottom of the third, which rounded out the scoring.

Brownwood mustered only four hits – two by Ybarra and one apiece by Field, Daylyn Ansons, and Weston Wolf.

On the mound, Wright and Ansons teamed up to yield one earned run on eight hits with seven strikeouts and four walks. The Brownwood defense committed two errors behind them.

The Lions (5-5) return to the diamond Friday with games against Burleson at 12:30 p.m. and their third matchup against San Angelo Lake View at 5:30 p.m.