CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas – Coming off a season opener victory, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi baseball (2-0) took the series over UT Arlington (0-2) Saturday afternoon at Chapman Field with a 6-1 victory, going up 2-0 on the Mavericks.
"It's hard to win and I told the guys to cherish every one of them," said head coach
Scott Malone following the victory. "I think at the end of the day, people are going to look at the score and think it was an easy one, but it never felt easy."
Senior
Hayden Thomas took the start on the mound, pitching five complete innings on the day. He faced 20 batters, earning seven strikeouts in his first outing of the season.
James Burchett, a senior, came in for relief of Thomas in the sixth inning followed by
Jaime Ramirez Jr., a redshirt junior.
Ramirez Jr. stayed in for the remainder of the game, finishing the performance with 3.1 innings pitched and a 0.00 ERA. He struck out four on his way to picking up a save for the Islanders with Thomas earning the win.
"I thought pitching was the story of the day," remarked Malone. "Thomas had five scoreless innings to start, we had a couple of outs from Burchett then handed it off to Ramirez Jr."
Offensively, the Islanders picked up where they left off Friday night with a three-run inning in the bottom of the second. Junior
Jake Johnson crossed the plate first off of a groundout by classmate
Sebastian Trinidad. In the following play,
Jose Enriquez, a junior, came home as senior
Brendan Ryan sent a triple out to left field. Ryan scored as
Diego Johnson (junior) sent a single up the six-hole slot.
Ryan kept the momentum rolling in his next outing with a home run out to right field in the top of the fifth inning. The score gave A&M-Corpus Christi a 4-0 lead with seven hits on the afternoon.
UT Arlington scored a run in the top of the sixth inning, soon responded to by senior
Max Puls off of a double by junior
Josh Caraway. The latter baserunner found his way home on a sacrifice fly by Trinidad for the last run scored of the day.
Ryan concluded the day with a .750 batting average, scoring two runs with two runs batted in. Senior
Jake Johnson earned two hits with a run scored, trailing only Ryan in his. Caraway, Enriquez, Puls, and D. Johnson each got a hit on the day.
A&M-Corpus Christi and UT Arlington conclude the three-game series Sunday afternoon at 1 p.m. at Chapman Field.
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