CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas – The Texas A&M-Corpus Christi baseball team was shut out in their game against Kansas on Sunday afternoon, being handed its third straight defeat to open the 2025 season after falling by a final score of 8-0.
For the second day in a row, the Islanders (0-3) could not get their bats warmed up at the plate against the Jayhawks (3-0), tallying just three hits throughout the entirety of the game on a double in the first by senior
Cade Sanchez that fell in between the Kansas outfielders in left center, a single by senior
Austin Russell in the second and a base hit by junior
Jackson Smith in the final frame. Aside from these, though, they were held out of the hit column entirely, struggling to cobble together rallies for the rest of the afternoon. Included in this was a stretch where the team went down in order in four consecutive innings, doing so from the fourth to the seventh before finally loading the bases to break the streak in the eighth. This turned out to be the best chance of the game for the Islanders, but they were unable to capitalize, stranding the runners where they stood after a weak ground ball to short to end the threat.
This cold spell in the box required the A&M-Corpus Christi pitching staff to bring its A-game on the other side, and in the early goings of the game, junior starter
Gage Burdick did just that, working scoreless through the first three innings while allowing just one hit and striking out four hitters. Once the fourth inning rolled around, though, Burdick lost control of the zone, issuing walks to each of the first three hitters of the frame and seeing his day come to a premature end as a result. This brought senior
Dylan Hill in from the bullpen to try to work out of the jam, but he was promptly met with a double down the left field line by Jayhawks designated hitter Dariel Osoria that plated the first two runs of the game for either team. Hill would proceed to get the next three hitters out after this, but two of them came on an RBI groundout and a sacrifice fly that plated another pair of runs and doubled up the score.
The Islanders were not given a reprieve the next inning either, as Kansas would get going again with two outs in the fifth to further extend their deficit. With two men on, first baseman Brady Ballinger crushed a pitch from Hill into the deepest part of center field for a triple that drove in two, and a few batters later, another would come across on an error. This made it a 7-0 ballgame, which would finally settle at eight on a Jayhawks sacrifice fly in the eighth.
Despite the loss, A&M-Corpus Christi did get a few solid performances out of its relievers. After appearing as a hitter off the bench in the first two games of the series, freshman
Tristan Crane got his first taste of game action on the mound and looked good, tossing 2.1 innings of scoreless ball while allowing just two hits and walking none. Junior
Michael Infranca also worked a clean outing, working the final two innings without surrendering a hit.
The Islanders will now try to avoid a sweep in the final game of the series against Kansas on Monday, with first pitch scheduled for 5 p.m. The starting pitchers for both teams are still to be determined.
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