PRAIRIE VIEW, Texas – The Texas A&M-Corpus Christi baseball team got back in the win column in its second midweek game in as many days on Wednesday, taking down Prairie View A&M on the road by a final score of 8-2.
The win got the Islanders (9-14) off their recent two-game skid, most recently dropping contests to Northwestern State on Sunday and Texas A&M on Tuesday. It was also their fourth this season over the Panthers (6-16) after previously winning three in a row at home at the beginning of the month, securing a sweep of the season series between the two.
After putting up a pair of crooked numbers in the early goings of their game last night, the Islanders struck once again with the bats at the start of Wednesday's game, putting up a five spot in the first to take full control of things right away. The first run of the day for either team came just four batters in, when with senior
Trey Cruz at the plate, junior
Karson Krowka raced home on a wild pitch by Prairie View starter Corey Battey. Cruz and senior
Chance Reisdorph would go on to draw consecutive walks with the bases loaded, which set up senior
Mason Persons to notch the big swing of the inning, lacing a double right down the left field line to score all three runners and chase Battey from his start prematurely. The cherry on top of the frame came when after junior
Christian Smith-Johnson met the new reliever with a base hit, the team executed a perfect double steal that allowed Persons to tally the fifth run of the inning for A&M-Corpus Christi.
A couple of Panthers runs in the bottom of the first and third innings would cut the Islanders' lead down to three, but they would answer in the fourth, doing so on a big swing from Cruz. With a runner on and one out in the frame, Cruz crushed a 1-0 pitch the opposite way, clearing the wall in left field for a two-run home run that increased the team's advantage up to 7-2. This was the left fielder's team-leading fourth longball of the season, all of which have come since the beginning of last week.
The Islanders would bring home their eighth and final run on a throwing error in the sixth, but as it turned out, they would not even need the insurance thanks to a nice effort from their pitching staff. After a shaky start to the day, a trio of arms managed to stabilize things on the mound, starting with 2.2 innings of perfect ball with three strikeouts from freshman
Tristan Crane, who moved to the bump after starting the day as the designated hitter. Junior
Adam Muirhead entered next and worked the next 1.1 innings while surrendering just a lone walk, and to close things out, junior
Luke Singleton struck out six batters over the final two frames to bring the game to its conclusion. The efforts from these three allowed A&M-Corpus Christi to shut out the Panthers over the final six innings on Wednesday, which came after it had allowed 19 runs combined over its previous 10 innings before that.
At the plate, Persons led the way with the big swing in the first, picking up a double to go along with a team-leading three RBIs. Cruz got on the board with the only multi-hit game of the day by going 2-4 with the two-run home run and a walk, and Reisdorph, Crane and senior
Isaac Webb joined him in reaching base at least twice.
The Islanders will now continue their road trip over the weekend, traveling to Beaumont to square off against Lamar in their third Southland Conference series of the season. The two teams will play a three-game set, with the first contest on Friday scheduled to start at 7 p.m.
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