UTRGV baseball dropped the opening game of the Southland Conference tournament 6-5 on Thursday afternoon.

With the loss, the Vaqueros are now scheduled to play the tournament hosts, Lamar, on Friday at 1:00 p.m. with the loser being eliminated from the tournament. That means either the second or third best team in the conference during the regular season will go winless in the conference tournament.

The Vaqueros had a rocky start as Kike Cienfuegos managed to pitch only 1.2 innings before being pulled from the game, giving up five runs and forcing UTRGV to try and battle back from behind.

The Vaqueros managed to do just that, with a stellar relief effort from Colton Vercoe leading the way. The Vaqueros rightly reliever went 5.1 innings and only allowed one run on two hits while striking out five.

At the plate, UTRGV was powered by strong performances from SLC Player of the Year Armani Raygoza who finished with three doubles in the game and PSJA alum Julius Ramirez's three-RBI effort.

After a sacrifice fly from Ramirez in the ninth inning, UTRGV found themselves down one with the tying run coming to the plate but couldn't complete the comeback and dropped Thursday's matchup against Northwestern State 6-5.

If UTRGV wins on Friday, they would play the loser of Friday night's Stephen F. Austin vs. Northwestern State game on Saturday afternoon.