ARKADELPHIA, Ark. - In the first Great American Conference series of the 2023 season, Henderson State swept Southwestern Oklahoma State with a pair of victories Saturday, 6-5 and 5-3. It is the third year in a row HSU has began GAC play with a series sweep.

Greyson Stevens notched three hits in the doubleheader on the final day, going 3-for-8 at the plate with one RBI. On the mound, Cade Tucker and Trevor Davis each picked up a save in the twin bill. In Tucker's two saves this season, he has allowed zero hits and tallied six strikeouts through three innings of work.

Henderson St. (8-3, 3-0) will make the longest road trip of the season next week when it heads to Alva, Oklahoma for a three-game series against Northwestern Oklahoma State Feb. 24-25. The Rangers won their conference-opening series against Ouachita Baptist, 2-1.   

GAME 1: Henderson St. 6, Southwestern Oklahoma St. 5
Tucker got the Reddies on the scoreboard early with a two-out double that scored Stevens and Luke Farrar. Kaden Argenbright followed that with a single to score Tucker, putting HSU up 3-0 after just one inning of play. Neither team saw a hit in the second before SWOSU homered in the top of the third to cut the lead to a single run, 3-2.

Three hits in the bottom of the fourth, two of which were doubles, yielded another run for HSU, 4-2, before Southwestern once again had an answer. After the Bulldogs used two hits and two walks to tie the game, Owen Vanthillo came in to retire the top of the fifth. 

Henderson immediately responded with two more runs in the bottom half of the inning thanks to a Luke Rice home run and a wild pitch to grab a 6-4 lead. It was Ethan Roark's turn to come to the bump, where he only allowed two hits and one run over the next two innings. With the slight 6-5 advantage, Tucker came in to finish things in the top of the ninth as HSU held on to the one-run victory.

GAME 2: Henderson St. 5, Southwestern Oklahoma St. 3
It was the Bulldogs' turn to get the early start, using three hits to plate two runs before HSU even got a chance to bat. The Reddies quickly tied it up, however, thanks to back-to-back doubles from Farrar and Stevens to lead off the half-inning. A wild pitch tied things at 2-all.

After Henderson scored just two more in the bottom of the third, it was the HSU pitching staff that did most of the grunt work in the series finale. After seeing three hits in the first inning, SWOSU claimed just one more hit through the next three innings. A single run in the top of the fifth for the visitors closed the gap to one, but a Farrar sacrifice fly in the sixth added what would be the Reddies' final run of the game.

Henderson continued to ride the coattails of the red-and-gray pitchers as Southwestern was unable to overcome the two-run deficit in the final inning. Texas A&M-Corpus Christi-transfer Trevor Davis entered the game in the seventh only to allow one hit in the last half-inning to record his first save in an HSU uniform.