Box Score Kearney, Neb. – On a windy night, the Fort Hays State baseball team hit five home runs to beat Nebraska-Kearney, 14-4 (8 innings), Wednesday in Kansas.
 
The win helps the Tigers (19-25, 13-20) salvage the last of a three-game series with the Lopers (18-24, 15-18). Over the last two weeks, UNK won the other games by scores of 12-11 and 11-3.

With winds blowing over 25 miles per hour, the clubs combined for 25 hits with seven leaving Larks Park and six being doubles.
 
Tiger leadoff hitter Connor Ross (3 for 5) homered to left to start the bottom of the first with nine-hole hitter Alex King (4 for 5, two runs & two RBI's) leading off the third with his second dinger of the spring.
 
UNK tried to counter as Papillion junior third baseman Brent Kirsch smacked a two-run shot in the top of the fourth. Kirsch's fourth homer of 2016 made it a 5-3 ball game in favor of the Tigers but Hays also used the long ball to respond.
 
Right fielder Caleb Cherryholmes (2 for 3, three runs) hit a three-run homer to right in the fifth with designated hitter Joe Mapes (2 for 4, three runs & five RBI's) bringing home three more in the sixth with a shot over the wall in left center. He already had hit a two-run homer in the third.
 
Freshman Logan Herd (3-5) did give up a solo shot to Loper junior center fielder Easton Edmond in the top of the sixth but went the distance to earn his third win. In throwing 119 pitches, the right hander fanned six, walked two and allowed eight hits.
 
Besides Kirsch and Edmond, Kansas junior right fielder Jacob Richardson went 2 for 4 for UNK.
 
The Lopers start a three-game series at Southwest Baptist Thursday at 3:30 p.m.