RUSSELLVILLE, Ark. – Matt Calhoun hit his fourth home run of the season and drove in three runs, and Tyler Stanford pitched six scoreless innings of relief but Harding fell 11-3 to Arkansas Tech on Saturday in the first game of a three-game Great American Conference series at Tech Field.

The teams will conclude the series Sunday at 1 p.m.

Harding (26-19) needs to win one of the two remaining games to qualify for their first GAC Tournament. The Bisons, now 15-13 in conference, entered the series in sixth place, one game ahead of Southeastern Oklahoma. Southeastern lost two of three games in its series against East Central and finished 15-15 in GAC play. Harding has to finish ahead of Southeastern, who holds the tiebreaker between the teams.

Arkansas Tech (30-18, 17-11) jumped ahead early. The Wonder Boys scored seven runs on four hits in the first inning. An error by the Bisons in the inning led to four unearned runs credited to starter Cameron Walker (3-4).

Tech scored four more in the second with another error leading to two more unearned runs.

Stanford entered in the third and shut down the Wonder Boys the rest of the way. His longest outing of the season prior to Saturday was only 2 2/3 innings against Arkansas-Monticello on Mar. 24. He threw 87 pitches, more than twice as many in any other outing this season. His effort could prove crucial to Harding's season because it saved the rest of the bullpen for Sunday's doubleheader.

Stanford allowed only three hits and walked three while striking out a career-high four batters.

Calhoun provided all of Harding's scoring. He had a two-run single in the sixth and added the solo home run in the ninth.

Billy Ninemire went 0-for-3 and had his school-record hitting streak snapped at 15 games.

Mason Reynolds (3-5) went the distance for Tech. He threw 101 pitches in the complete game outing with 16 of his 27 outs coming on fly balls.