SAN ANGELO – The No. 11-ranked Angelo State baseball team saw Tarleton State hustle out to a 3-0 lead through five innings, but once again rallied and earned an 8-5 Lone Star Conference win over the Texans on Friday in the series opener at Foster Field.

ASU (14-4, 4-1 LSC) took a 4-3 lead with four runs in the bottom of the sixth, surrendered the lead when TSU scored two runs in the seventh and then had another four-run inning in the eighth highlighted by Hunter Choate hitting his first home run of his career and Tyler Coughenour hitting a two-run inside-the-park home run to give the Rams their 8-5 advantage. Graylon Brown (3-0) earned the win after throwing the final 2.1 innings, striking out three and closing the door in the ninth inning with a line out with one runner on base.

"We are thriving on the attitude of never giving up," said junior Cameron Massengill, who drove in the sixth run of the game with a single to center field in the eighth. "We'd like to get an early lead, but when that doesn't happen you just have to keep fighting and that's what we did. It was a huge win and now we just have to come back out here tomorrow and get two more wins."

Tarleton State (12-5, 3-2 LSC) received a strong start from pitcher Jacob French who struck out six and went 7.1 innings before the Rams were able to get to him. French walked only one batter on a night where he threw 116 pitches in a matchup against Jake Feckley who also came into the game with a 4-0 record. Feckley went 5.0 innings, striking out three and uncharacteristically walking three in the no-decision.

"French was as good as we've seen this year," ASU head coach Kevin Brooks said. "He did a great job of pitching. We've been a resilient team all season and we needed to be again tonight. A lot of that is because of the way he was throwing against us and not necessarily us having bad approaches at the plate."

Choate led the Rams at the plate, going 4-for-4 with two RBI and scoring two runs. The sophomore extended his team-leading hitting streak to eight games and is now hitting .394 with 26 hits and 10 RBI through 18 games. His home run to left field was the first in his career at Angelo State, but was far from his first clutch hit.

"He always seems to rise to the occasion at the plate for us," said Brooks of Choate. "He could become one of the best players in our conference over the next couple of years. If you really pay attention to what he brings every day, you start to notice what a gritty competitor he is on the field. He finds a way to get things done in big moments."

David Goggin went 2-for-4 in the game, including hitting his fourth double of the season in the sixth inning. The sixth frame included an RBI single from Christian Summers and Reggie Rodriguez and Nehwon Norkeh scoring after singling after Coughenour had reached on an error. Rodriguez went 2-for-4 in the game and had three putouts in right field.

Jared Musgrove led the Texans with three hits, while Noel Nevarez had two RBI and Kevin Meredith supplied two RBI.

The series continues on Saturday with a  1 p.m. doubleheader back at Foster Field. The Rams will turn to Jason Zgardowski to start the first game and Blake Bass the second. Zgardowski (2-0) has shined in his previous two starts with 19 strikeouts, while Bass (1-0) is coming off a complete-game win last week against Cameron.

"We need Bass and Z to go deep into the games tomorrow," Brooks said. "They did that for us last week and we'll need it again. We used a good number of relievers tonight, but they will all be ready to go again tomorrow if we need them to. Graylon may be a little taxed, but he's a competitor and will be ready. We just need to come out tomorrow and get solid pitching, continue playing good defense and compete."