CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas - Texas A&M-Corpus Christi baseball smacked three home runs out of the park in the sixth inning to take the lead and rode the momentum to a 7-3 victory over UIW Friday night at Chapman Field.
The Islanders shift to 24-28, 12-11 SLC on the season while dropping the Cardinals down to 27-24, 13-10 SLC. The rubber match is set for Saturday at 2 p.m. at Chapman Field to determine seeding for the Southland Conference Tournament.
"I think their guy gave them an awesome start and we kept pushing, running him into three big college hitters in Ryan, Puls, and Jones and those guys changed the game," said head coach
Scott Malone. "I'm happy for these guys as I think they played well and it was a huge win.
Early in the game, the Cardinals took a 3-0 lead, each run coming in the top of the fourth, but the Islanders retaliated, slowly striking back one run at a time, collecting their first on a solo shot by senior
Brendan Ryan.
Working in the favor of the blue and green, a series of events in the fifth inning led to two batters reaching base with freshman
Christian Smith-Johnson coming home to score.
As the game loomed in favor of the Cardinals, Ryan took a five-pitch at-bat, sending the final one he saw out of the park to tie the game up at three. Senior
Max Puls followed his lead with another home run sent out of the park to build momentum for the Islanders. After allowing an out to be collected, junior
Tre Jones sent the third homer over the right-field wall to give the Islanders a 5-3 advantage.
Junior
Diego Johnson scored the seventh and final run of the game in the bottom of the seventh on an RBI single by senior
Leo Markotic.
Ryan concluded the night with a 3-for-4 night behind the plate, collecting two RBIs and scoring three of the team's runs. Puls and Markotic both had multi-hit performances with two apiece.
Colin Purcell, a junior, pitched his second complete game of the season, sending 104 pitches over home plate while facing 34 batters en route to his fifth win of the 2023 campaign. He struck out seven and only walked one with two earned runs on the night.
A&M-Corpus Christi and UIW return to the diamond Saturday afternoon at 2 p.m. at Chapman Field in a rubber-series matchup that will be streamed on ESPN+ with a subscription.
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