CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas – The Texas A&M-Corpus Christi baseball team will wrap up its time on their home field for the season with a 6 p.m. face-off with UTRGV Tuesday at Chapman Field in the final meeting of the South Texas Showdown, presented by Rally Credit Union.
First pitch is set for 6 p.m. CT and will be available to watch live on ESPN+. Taco Palenque will also be distributing free tacos for the first 200 fans in attendance.
"Our last home game, it will be a fun night for our guys. We're coming off a bye weekend so I know our players will be anxious to get on the field and play. It's always a fun rivalry match up when we play the Vaqueros," said head coach
Scott Malone.
It will be the final midweek for the Islanders (21-30) before they take to the road for the last stretch of the season. It will also mark the final meeting between the A&M-Corpus Christi and UTRGV for the 2023-24 year, as the institutions complete another year of the South Texas Showdown.
The game will not be counted in the scoring towards the annual rivalry, as it is usually scheduled in the event of a tie. However, the Islanders enter the game with a 36.5 to 21.5 point lead in the competition and actually clinched the claim to this year's trophy back in February after baseball won 2-1 win in Edinburg.
The Islanders have been led offensively by junior
Issac Webb who is batting a .338 on the year. He is joined by three others hitting over .300 including seniors
Cole Modgling (.333) and
Sebastian Trinidad (.332) in addition to junior
Garrett Gruell (.306). The first three rank eighth, ninth, and tenth in the conference, respectively.
Webb is also top-five in the conference in total hits (73) and stolen bases (17) and is sixth in triples with three on the year. He leads the team in all.
Trinidad is on a nine-game hitting streak but has reached base in 17 consecutive games, a season-long. Also on a 10+ game streak of reaching base is sophomore
Christian Smith-Johnson (12) and Gruell (10). Gruell is one of six in the league to hit at least 10 home runs on the season.
This offense will go up against UTRGV's Wyatt Wiatrek who is making his fourth start of the year. Wiatrek has only pitched 9.1 innings combined this year but has done damage, striking out 14 during his outings.
The Islanders will go with senior
Samuel Feltz, who will be making his third start on the mound this season but 21
st appearance. He has thrown 23.0 innings this year and has struck out 12.
The Islanders will look to capitalize on their final midweek for some momentum going into their last conference series of the year, still clawing for a spot in the SLC Tournament set for May 22-25 in Hammond.
The Islanders lead UTRGV 37-26 in the all-time series and are 17-11 when playing the Vaqueros at home.
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