AUSTIN – A 3-for-3 night by Ryan Franden highlighted the Sam Houston offense, but the No. 7 Texas Longhorns had too much in the tank on Tuesday night, handing the Bearkats a 13-3 defeat in seven innings at UFCU Disch-Falk Field. 

Sam Houston (7-18) scored first with a run in the second, but Texas (20-3) answered with a run in the bottom half and went on to score in each of the next five frames to end things in abbreviated fashion.  

Franden finished the night 3-for-3 with a double in his first at-bat and RBI singles in each of his next two for his second 3-hit game of the season, while Addison Smith also had a pair of hits and scored twice. 

But Franden's 2-bagger in the second inning was SHSU's only extra-base hit of the night, while the Horns finished with eight, including a trio of home runs from Jalin Flores, Adrian Rodriguez and Will Gasparino.  

Danny Valadez made his first start of the season and got through two innings before running into trouble in the third, allowing a 3-run homer to Flores to put the Horns in front for the first and final time. Valadez took his second loss of the season before handing it off to Cole Marthiljohni who logged 2.0 innings of his own before single innings apiece from Zak Johnson, Tate Hickman and Cam Diaz. 

Longhorn starter Kade Bing went 4.0 innings as well and was credited with a win thanks to the abbreviated 7-inning affair, moving him to 1-0 on the year.  
 
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The Kats will now jump back into Conference USA play this weekend when they travel to Bowling Green, Ky. for a 3-game series with WKU. Each of the games on Friday and Saturday are schedule to be aired on ESPN+, while WKU's audio broadcast can be heard for Sunday's finale on the Varsity app.