CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas - Texas A&M-Corpus Christi's baseball program fell to UIW 5-1 in the final game of the regular season on senior day to claim the seventh seed of the SLC Baseball Tournament.
The Islanders (24-29, 12-12 SLC) and Cardinals (28-24, 14-10 SLC) had the match tied up at 1-1 heading into the Saturday finale at Chapman Field.
"I think a positive was
Zach Garcia's start. If you would have told me before the game he pitched six innings and only gave up two runs, I'd think we win 8-2," said head coach
Scott Malone. "We'll have to spin it around and get it going again."
Garcia, a sophomore, threw through 5.2 innings, striking out eight batters and allowing only two runs, both unearned in the loss. Senior
Hayden Thomas pitched 2.2 innings in relief with junior
Evans Hendricks and redshirt junior
Jaime Ramirez Jr. each collecting an out.
The Cardinals plated one run in the first to take the early advantage, but the Islanders struck back in the third inning with an RBI single by senior
Brendan Ryan to drive in junior
Diego Johnson.
UIW plated its second run of the game in the fifth before repeating in the seventh to make it a 3-1 game before closing it out with two insurance runs in the ninth.
Johnson hit 2-for-4 on the day, scoring the lone run for the Islanders after smashing his second triple of the season out to left field. Classmate
Tre Jones hit 3-for-4 behind the plate and was left on base twice on the day.
As a unit, A&M-Corpus Christi collected seven hits and two walks on the day while striking out only five times compared to the Cardinals' 12 times. Eight of the strikeouts came at the hand of Garcia.
Malone continued on to say, "On the tournament next week, going in and playing the host school, we need to rally around it and beat them on their home field."
A&M-Corpus Christi will challenge McNeese Tuesday at 6 p.m. in the play-in game of the Southland Conference Baseball Tournament in a single-elimination matchup. The full bracket can be found
here.
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