NATCHITOCHES, La. – The Texas A&M-Corpus Christi baseball team started strong but was cut off by Northwestern State who created separation late to take game one 11-4 Friday night at Brown-Stroud Field.
The Islanders (14-20, 2-5 SLC) scored all four runs in the third and held a 4-3 edge through five until the Demons () took over with a grand slam in the sixth to pull away the rest of the night.
"It was a tough night for us," said head coach
Scott Malone. "I thought we had really good energy early on and jumped out to get a big lead. I think anytime you get a 4-0 lead on a Friday night, you feel like you got a pretty good chance to win and obviously we're playing a good Northwestern State team that's at home where they've been playing good baseball, and they sure didn't take that laying down."
Junior
Isaac Webb settled back into a lead-off position after a slight tweak last weekend, going 3-for-4 at the plate with a run. Though, it was junior
Garrett Gruell with the team's hit of the night as his eighth home run of the season came in the third to tack two on the board for the Islanders.
Junior
Matthew Watson made the start, going 5.0 innings and opening it with a bang as he got the first batter swinging. He finished the outing with four punch outs, only giving up two earned runs.
While the Islanders were able to get through the Northwestern State starter for four runs, the Demons put in a shutout reliever while their offense was able to jump on A&M-Corpus Christi's bullpen as the tone switched halfway through the game.
"They jumped right back at us, and they took the game from our bullpen, and it really got away from us. We scored those runs early and then went cold and we weren't able to keep adding on, so it made for a long Friday night, but we've been in this spot before. Hopefully we will come out and bounce back tomorrow to get the series back to even," said Malone.
With the majority of A&M-Corpus Christi's offense coming in the third, juniors
Logan Vaughan and
Bryce Logan were able to get it started with both drawing a walk out of the gate. Webb then perfectly sat down a bunt single to load the bases before senior
Sebastian Trinidad drove Vaughan home on the sacrifice fly.
With runners on the corners, Webb looked to steal second and slid in safe before advancing to third on the throwing error by the catcher which helped draw Logan home on the play. Up 2-0, Gruell then went yard in a lined missile to left that snuck just fair to clear the bases for the 4-0 lead.
Northwestern State responded with three in the bottom frame with one coming off an infield error that could've turned two. From there, Watson didn't let up another during his outing and even escaped a bases-loaded situation in the bottom of the fifth after he got the final two outs both swinging.
However, the Demons took advantage of Watson leaving the mound in the sixth and seventh where they poured in eight runs to take over 11-4 the rest of the way.
The Islanders will look to even the series in game two tomorrow, set for 2 p.m. back at Brown-Stroud Field. They've done it before, as their last away conference series had them drop the first game at UIW before completing the reverse sweep for the ultimate series win.
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