PORTALES, N.M. – The No. 17-ranked Angelo State baseball team opened its four-game Lone Star Conference series against Eastern New Mexico with a 5-4 loss on Friday at Greyhound Field.

The Rams (19-8, 9-7 LSC) led 4-3 going into the bottom of the eighth before the Greyhounds (7-17, 3-10 LSC) scored two runs on three hits in the inning and then secured the win with Dylan Montano earning the save by keeping ASU from scoring the tying run in the ninth.

"It was real disappointing for us, but credit Eastern tonight for not giving up even when they were down," ASU head coach Kevin Brooks said. "They've been struggling this season in games like this, but they found a way to win it against us. Our bullpen had been pretty solid for us, but we didn't do our job there tonight. Our offense came back there in the bottom of the eighth to give us the lead and we expect for our pitcher to be able to hold it in those situations."

ASU starter Steve Naemark recorded 11 strikeouts and allowed only five hits and two walks in seven innings of work, but received a no-decision after exiting with the Rams trailing 3-2 going to the top of the eighth inning. The Rams, who had led 2-1 from the third to the seventh, regained the lead in the eighth with Hunter Spear leading off the inning with a double which was followed by a Cody Semler single down the left field line that scored Sam Kohler who had pinch ran for Spear. After a strikeout and groundout, Paxton DeLaGarza gave the Rams the lead with a double to right-center field on a 1-2 count. The double scored Semler from third for the fourth and final run of the night for ASU.

Trailing 4-3, ENMU led its half of the eighth inning off with a  single by Dylan Nault off reliever Matt Shannon and then had runners at first and second when Matthew Burks took a five-pitch walk off Dillon Becker who came in after the leadoff single. The runners would advance on a wild pitch from Graylon Brown who entered after the walk. ENMU left fielder Chris Sanders grounded out to second to score Nault and then Blake Cooper chopped a single over a drawn in infield to score Burks for the game-winning run.

DeLaGarza went 2-for-4 with two RBI to extend his team-leading hitting streak to 10 games, while Semler, Spear, J.C. Snyder and Derek Tyner each had one hit for the Rams who finished the game with seven hits. DeLaGarza is now hitting .413 on the season after his 15th multi-hit game. Naemark, who had double-digit strikeouts for the third time this season now has 74 strikeouts through 56.0 innings of work.

Angelo State and ENMU will resume the series at 2 p.m. on Saturday with a doubleheader (7/7) before playing the series finale at 1 p.m. on Sunday. Blake Bass (5-1) is scheduled to start the first game of the doubleheader with Bryce Zak (4-3) set to start the third game of the series on Saturday. 

"We have to come back tomorrow ready to compete," Brooks said. "It's tough after a loss like this, but we have to put it behind us and come out ready to play tomorrow. We have to get a couple on Saturday."