ABILENE, Texas – The Howard Payne Yellow Jacket baseball team dropped game one of their three game series with McMurry University 7-2 Friday evening. 

Friday night, McMurry scored five runs in the bottom of the second inning and HPU had two errors in the field, and HPU’s Billy Ray Cruz was only charged with one earned run during that inning. 

McMurry added a sacrifice fly in the fourth to make the score 6-0 and later hit an RBI double to straight centerfield for McMurry’s final run in the sixth inning.

McMurry took a no-hitter into the sixth inning before HPU’s Kyle Lloyd took a 3-0 pitch down the leftfield line for the Yellow Jackets’ first hit. Then in the seventh, HPU scored two runs on an RBI single from Carlton Brown and Ryan Breeding scored on a balk for HPU’s final run.

Billy Ray Cruz threw all eight innings for HPU in the loss and was charged with three earned runs, he walked four and struck out seven to fall to 4-4 on the season.

McMurry improved to 16-15 on the season overall and moved to 8-5 in the ASC West Division while HPU fell to 15-15 overall and 4-9 in league play.

The two teams will settle the series Saturday at 1 p.m. with a doubleheader.