CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas - Texas A&M-Corpus Christi baseball (12-13) claimed the third and final game of the conference-opening series against Southeastern (14-10) 3-1 at Chapman Field Sunday afternoon.
"Diego went out and won a game for us today," said head coach
Scott Malone. "We were getting no-hit in the middle innings when he walked out there and gets a big triple to turn the game around and reminds everybody we were about to get back in this thing."
Finding themselves in a 1-0 deficit after the top of the first, the Islanders tied the game in the fourth inning after junior
Diego Johnson scored off of a single by classmate
Tre Jones. Johnson earned the team's first triple of the weekend and 18th of the season with the hit, breaking up a no-hitter by the Lions.
A&M-Corpus Christi remained tied with Southeastern through the top of the eight inning before scoring two in the bottom half. Putting up two consecutive hits, the blue and green took a 2-1 lead it wouldn't relinquish on a sacrifice fly by senior
Brendan Ryan. Two batters later, freshman
Christian Smith-Johnson earned the final run of the game off of another hit by Jones.
Jones led the team in hits at two on the day, both earning RBIs, through four plate appearances. He was one of six Islanders to get a hit on the day as the team collected seven in the performance.
Redshirt junior
Jaime Ramirez Jr. was credited with the win after entering the game in the sixth inning and fighting through three innings of work. He struck out two batters on 32 pitches. Closer
Austin Dean, a junior, earned his second save of the season after seeing six batters in the ninth inning to end the game.
Sophomore
Zach Garcia started the game on the mound and pitched five complete innings, striking out six batters. With a pitch count of 103, he was relieved by junior
Sean Sieve who faced two batters.
"I'm super proud of Zach, then Jaime coming into a first and second no-out jam and navigating through that," continued Malone. "Dean went in and handled some good guys at the end so I'm proud of him as well."
A&M-Corpus Christi returns to the diamond Tuesday at 6 p.m. against UTSA at Chapman Field. The game will be streamed on ESPN+.
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