THIBODAUX, La. - In a back-and-forth battle, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi's baseball program (23-25, 11-8 SLC) went on a late run to best Nicholls (27-20, 12-7 SLC) 9-4 Friday night at Ray E. Didier Field.
"I go back to the pre-game message 15 minutes before the game when I said why not us," said head coach
Scott Malone. "We play good baseball on Friday nights and
Matthew Watson has been as good as anybody in the league."
Playing cat and mouse early in the game, the Islanders and Colonels exchanged blows in the second inning with the former scoring first as freshman
Christian Smith-Johnson crossed the plate before a reply by the Bayou Bandits. In the second at-bat of the third, senior
Max Puls sent a ball out of the park over right field, giving the blue and green a 2-1 lead. The hit extended Puls' hitting streak to nine games, dating back to the series against Lamar.
Smith-Johnson scored his second run of the game on a sacrifice fly by junior
Sebastian Trinidad, his seventh of the 2023 campaign. Nicholls plated a run in the fifth before
Tre Jones, a junior, earned his first run of the game on an RBI single by sophomore
Chance Reisdorph to make the game 4-2 in favor os the Islanders. Nicholls earned its third run of the game in the bottom half of the inning, making it a one-run game.
Trinidad earned his turn to cross home plate in the seventh as senior
Brendan Ryan sent a sacrifice fly out to left field, extending the Islanders' lead to 5-3. Trinidad attacked once again in the top of the ninth on an RBI single by Ryan.
One at-bat later, Puls sent his second ball out of the park, tacking three more runs on the board to make it a 9-3 game for the Islanders. Nicholls scored one additional run in the bottom of the inning before falling short of the comeback.
Matthew Watson, a redshirt sophomore, started on the mound, throwing 5.1 innings and striking out four before senior
Hayden Thomas entered in relief during the sixth. Thomas pitched 3.2 innings to earn his second save of the season as Watson was credited with the victory.
Trinidad saw a career night in which he went 3-for-4 with two runs scored and two RBIs credited to his name. Collected two hits each were Reisdorph and Puls with both of the latter's hits coming in the form of home runs,
A&M-Corpus Christi and Nicholls return for the second game of the series Saturday at 6:30 p.m. at Ray E. Didier Field.
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