ODESSA, Texas (March 28, 2025) – After winning its first series of the season two weeks ago, The University of Texas Permian Basin baseball team hoped that its positive momentum would help them against a top-five team in NCAA Division II on Friday, but instead, the Falcons fell 18-7 in eight innings at home against No. 3 nationally-ranked The University of Texas at Tyler at Roden Field.

UT Tyler (26-8 overall, 26-7 Lone Star Conference) got a one-out home run by Justin Williams to center field in the top of the first inning, his eighth home run of the season, and then saw Kaston Mason go yard with a three-run bomb to right center field to cap off a five-run top of the fourth inning. That broke a 3-3 tie and gave UT Tyler an 8-3 lead that it would never relinquish.

Wiki DeLeon did his best to match the long balls of the Patriots as he started off the bottom of the fourth inning with a solo home run to right field and then hit another solo shot to right field, this time with two outs in the bottom of the seventh to make it an 11-7 score.

UTPB (8-22, 8-21) would score one run for four straight innings (4th-7th innings) to try and keep pace with UT Tyler and was outhitting the Patriots 9-8 heading into the final inning.

However, that is where the wheels came off as the Patriots scored seven runs on five hits and three errors in the eighth inning, including scoring three runs on one play that featured a pair of errors by the Falcons' defense as the ball got past both the shortstop and the left fielder.

UTPB came up just short of extending the game in the bottom of the eighth as Andrew Prado led off with a single up the middle and advanced to third on a single to center field by Kaleb Scull, but a popout to shortstop, a groundout to third base and a swinging strikeout was all she wrote.

Scull would finish 4-for-5 with two runs scored and two doubles and DeLeon was 2-for-4 with his two solo home runs and three runs scored to lead the Falcons' offense. The UTPB offense was also able to tag returning All-American Rawley Hector (5-1) for five runs in 4.2 innings. Hector entered the game with just a 1.79 earned run average, a number that now sits at 2.34 after his bout with the Falcons.

In the end, the Patriots racked up 18 runs on 13 hits, with nine different players recording at least one hit and eight players driving in at least one run. The Patriots came into the series ranking in the top-10 in NCAA Division II in both hits and runs scored and were also top-10 in ERA by their pitching staff.

It was the first game between UTPB and UT Tyler since the opening round of the 2024 Lone Star Conference Championship in which the Falcons won the final two games against the Patriots by scores of 19-11 and 10-6 to advance to the final four of the LSC Championship.

Games two and three of the series between UTPB and UT Tyler will be at 12 p.m. and 3 p.m., respectively, on Saturday, March 29, from Roden Field.