TOWN of CARY, N.C. – The Angelo State baseball team finds itself in the same position it was in last week.

The Rams were shutout for only the third time this season after taking a 4-0 loss to Henderson State in the opening game of the NCAA Division II Baseball National Finals on Saturday at the USA Baseball National Training Complex. ASU (41-17) also dropped the opening game of the NCAA DII South Central Championship last week before winning four straight games to advance to the national tournament and will once again be facing elimination games throughout – starting with a 2 p.m. (CDT) on Monday against Wilmington (37-14) which fell 3-2 in the second game of the tournament against Catawba. 

"We have great pitching and that's what we have to hang our hat on right now," ASU head coach Kevin Brooks said. "Hopefully we'll come back offensively on Monday and get after it. We had 15 fly-ball outs and if you had told me before the game that I would have told you that would have been the result. We made their left-side of their infield field one ground ball all day. You can't get the ball in the air and be successful here."

ASU flew out eight times to the Henderson State left fielder and once to center field and managed only six hits on the day. The Rams stranded nine runners on base in the game, including leaving the bases loaded in the seventh after J.C. Snyder led off with a single, Derek Tyner walked and then Cody Semler took a two-out walk after two strikeouts had halted the scoring opportunity. With two outs and the bases loaded, HSU reliever Jordan Taylor coaxed a David Goggin groundout to first base to end the ASU threat. The Rams would strand two more in the eight with Cameron Massengill hitting a one-out single and Snyder taking a walk before a foul-out ended the inning with another scoreless frame.  

Henderson State scored each of its four runs in four innings, starting with a run in the first after Hunter Mayall led the bottom of the first inning off with a single and then stole second base. He would move to third on a groundout to Snyder at third and would score on a Tadarious Hawkins bloop-single to shallow left field. Bass (10-3) would shut the Reddies out for three straight innings after the first-inning run, but HSU added another run in the fifth after the leadoff hitter was hit and scored on a single through the right-side of the infield after being moved over to scoring position with a sacrifice bunt. Another sacrifice bunt in the seventh set up another run.

"I thought Henderson did a great job of executing," Brooks said. "They were able to get some leadoff guys on and executed some sacrifice bunts to get guys in motion and then got big hits. Obviously offensively, we had trouble getting anything going. We hits some balls good, but having been here before I knew that this place plays like a graveyard. If you hit a ball higher than eight feet high you're going to be out. We hit four that last weekend in Colorado and back in San Angelo are home runs, but that's not the field we're playing on. We knew that and we needed to play to the elements. I didn't feel like we did as good of a job as I was hoping we were going to do. Henderson made the plays and did a great job of playing situational baseball. You have to give them all the credit."

Bass threw seven innings for the Rams in the loss where he limited the Reddies to six hits. An All-America selection, Bass only struck out one but was effective by using his defense which included second baseman Sam Kohler record four assists and shortstop Paxton DeLaGarza have four assists.

"I was just going out there trying to get outs," Bass said. "They didn't chase very many of my strikeout pitches because they had good approaches. They just executed when they had the chance."

ASU, which struck out only five times, finished with six hits coming for six different hitters, including Jarryd Klemm having the lone extra-base hit when he doubled to right-center field in the fifth inning. Kohler, Massengill, Snyder, Brett David and Goggin each had singles for the Rams who had not be held scoreless since March 23rd at Texas A&M-Kingsville.

The Rams are now 1-3 all-time at the NCAA DII Baseball National Finals and are 2-1 against the Reddies who move into the winner's bracket where they'll play at 6 p.m. (CDT) on Monday against the winner of the Wilmington-Catawba game. Colton Lorance (7-4) earned the win for HSU after limiting the Rams to five hits through six innings of work, while Nick Vanthillo recorded his 13th save of the season by striking out two in a two-inning save.