CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas – Throwing five innings of scoreless baseball, junior
Evans Hendricks set the tone for the Texas A&M-Corpus Christi baseball team as the Islanders took a big fourth inning and never looked back in an 8-4 win over Texas Southern in the first official home game of the season.
The first six retired Hendricks was responsible for came on strikeouts, five of which went down swinging. He didn't even concede a base hit until the bottom of the fifth as the lefty ended with 10 total Ks to garner his first win on the mound this year. The 10 strikeouts matched his career best.
"I thought Evans was outstanding, obviously. He is a big arm who is on the radar of some MLB guys and he pitched like it tonight, he had really good stuff going and stayed in the zone and challenged those guys to get a lot of strikes and misses. 10 strikeouts in five innings, you know you got good stuff," said head coach
Scott Malone.
It helped set up the Islanders offense, who finally backed up Hendricks in the bottom of the fourth. Junior
Josh Blount knocked the one-out infield single and junior
Logan Vaughan laid off for the walk for two on. Senior
Sebastian Trinidad singled to center and was credited with the RBI as Blount got a good jump from second to score the first run of the night.
An error then put sophomore
Christian Smith-Johnson on first as Vaughan scored the second run of the inning. Junior
Mario Mendoza Jr. drew the bases-loading walk and another costly mistake by the Texas Southern infield drove Smith-Johnson and Trinidad home for a 4-0 lead.
Vaughan tacked on another after barreling the RBI-double in the fifth to score Vaughan. The Islanders finally relented an opposing run in the top of the sixth but they responded with three more in the bottom frame as Mendoza singled before junior
Isaac Webb shot one deep to the gap in right center for the RBI-triple. Senior
Cole Modgling entered as a pinch hitter which paid off as he singled just fare to drive home Webb and junior
Drake Kerr who was walked in the previous at-bat.
It would be the final offensive spurt from the Islanders, and although the Tigers cut the lead in half with three runs in the seventh, juniors
Joshua Munoz and Samual Feltz each pitched an inning in relief to silence Texas Southern the rest of the way.
The Islanders ended with 10 hits, building on their season-total of 64. The Islanders entered the night ranked #4 in the NCAA in total hits.
"I thought we played good baseball, but we could've executed a little better. You look at the score and the 8-4 game feels like it should've been 10-2 if we had been a little bit better on the mound and we had chances to score a few more runs. But a wins a win and we needed to get back into the win column and we got it. We're getting ready to face some really talented teams and it'll take our ace stuff. It's going to be an exciting weekend," said Malone.
The weekend will continue a streak of baseball in Corpus Christi as the Islanders will host the Kleberg Bank College Classic at Whataburger Field Friday through Sunday. They will welcome in Maryland, Pittsburgh, and Washington for the three-day tournament with the Islanders opening up Friday at 6 p.m. against the Terrapins.
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