CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas – The Texas A&M-Corpus Christi baseball team continued the momentum from its winning weekend into its contest on Monday afternoon, jumping on the scoreboard early and taking down Washington State by a final of 8-2.
The victory capped off a very successful homestand for the Islanders (3-5), who have now won three of their last four games since the start of the Kleberg Bank College Classic on Friday. It was also their second win in as many days over the Cougars (0-8), with the team outscoring their opponents from the northwest 16 to 8 in those games.
"I thought we were outstanding from the jump," said head coach
Scott Malone. "I thought we really played good baseball. I couldn't be happier leaving here on a Monday afternoon with not only going 3-1 on the weekend, but the way we played for nine innings today. I thought our pitching was really good, I thought we played great defense behind those guys, and I thought we hit all day and made it hard on them."
Hot of the heels of an impressive come-from-behind win on Sunday, the Islanders wasted no time at the plate on Monday, responding to a WSU run in the opening frame with a barrage of their own to take an early stranglehold on the game. The home team started the scoring off in the bottom of the first, getting the first rally started with two outs on an infield single by senior
Cade Sanchez and a double down the left field line by the red-hot
Austin Russell. This put a pair of runners into scoring position, which allowed senior
Chance Reisdorph to come through with a base hit up the middle that plated both and gave the Islanders their first lead of the day.
A&M-Corpus Christi would continue to put the pressure on Cougar pitching from here, posting a four-spot in the very next frame to increase its advantage to a commanding five runs. The bottom of the order kicked off the fun this time around, starting with a leadoff double down the line by senior
Mason Persons and a sacrifice bunt by freshman
Chad Pantuso that moved the runner over 90 feet. Senior
Isaac Webb would cash this run in with a base hit right up the middle in the next at-bat, and after he reached scoring position with a stolen base, junior
Jackson Smith would bring him home with a double. To cap things off, Russell stepped up to the plate after a walk by Sanchez and sent a 2-2 pitch into nearly the same spot he did in the first inning, plating both Smith and Sanchez and putting the team up 6-1.
The Islanders would eventually score two more on a sacrifice fly by Persons in the fifth and another RBI knock from Smith in the eighth, but as it turned out, they would not even need that many, as the pitching staff put together arguably its best showing of the young season in what turned out to be a bullpen game. After 1.2 innings of work to kick things off from freshman
Tristan Crane fresh off of a two-hit performance in the lineup yesterday, the first arm to be summoned from the bullpen was junior
Braden LaRusso, who stranded a pair of runners by picking up the last out of the second and then tossed two more frames of one-run ball en route to his first win as an Islander. Senior
David Dean came in next and had perhaps the best outing of the day, taking the bulk of the work with three innings while keeping the Cougars off the scoreboard entirely. Finally, senior
Cam Soliz closed things out for the second day in a row, working scoreless in both the eighth and ninth and picking up a pair of punchouts. In total, the bullpen tossed 7.1 innings, allowing just one earned run on eight hits while walking two and striking out three.
"We went to the pen after three runs in the first inning combined, and you start to think it might be one of those days, but our bullpen didn't let it be one of those days," Malone said. "It could've been an 8-7, flip-a-coin type games, but it wasn't one of those days because of guys like
Braden LaRusso and
David Dean. That was as well as David's thrown it since he's been an Islander. He got after those guys with high energy and threw a ton of strikes, and I thought he set the tone for us right there."
On the offensive side, the big bats once again led the way for A&M-Corpus Christi, with the middle of the order of Smith, Sanchez and Russell combining to go 6-13 with three doubles, four RBI and four runs scored. Junior
Karson Krowka also put up a multi-hit game out of the sixth spot in the order, and Webb set the table at the top with a hit, a run scored and an RBI of his own.
The Islanders will now have a quick turnaround to their next game, departing for their first road game of the season on Wednesday at the University of Houston-Victoria. First pitch for the midweek contest is scheduled for 6 p.m., and both starting pitchers are still to be determined.
"We ran into a machine opening weekend in Kansas and got knocked on our heels a little bit," Malone said. "If you told me we'd turn the bus around and go 3-1 on the second weekend, I wouldn't be sure we'd have been able to do it, but we walked out there and got after them. I'm super proud of these guys."
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