CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas – The Texas A&M-Corpus Christi baseball team secured a series sweep in the finale of their set against Prairie View A&M on Sunday afternoon, using a big first inning to ride to victory by a final score of 12-6.
The sweep was the first for the Islanders (6-6) since March 3-5, 2023, when they defeated Lindenwood in four consecutive games at Chapman Field. The team also managed to hang 10 or more runs on the Panthers (4-8) in every contest over the weekend, which marked the first time they accomplished this in three straight games in nearly 18 years, when they scored 10, 17 and 15 during the three contests in a series against Nicholls on April 5-7, 2007.
"I told the guys about getting to the finish line for Week 3, and we got there today," said head coach
Scott Malone. "I don't care who you're playing, it's hard to get to the finish line with a 3-1 week, so for us to see it through and finish three straight wins, I'm super happy for our guys. We'll enjoy it for a day and then flip the page and turn to Week 4."
The Islanders got their day going with a crooked number in the first inning for the second time in the last three days, but the one on Sunday came in a very different manner, with the team scoring six runs on just one total hit. This came about thanks to a whopping five walks and three hit batsmen, which kept the line moving on the basepaths one station at a time. Included in this was a stretch of six straight batters that were either hit or issued a walk, which drove in the final five runs of the frame without the ball being put in play once.
"We were talking about it in here, it was a discipline day," Malone said. "Hitters want to hit. They want to see the ball they want and go get it, but we needed to do the opposite of that today. We needed to slow the game down and force them to throw strikes, and I thought our guys showed great discipline early."
Prairie View managed to settle down a little bit after this, turning around and tossing a zero the next inning and then cutting A&M-Corpus Christi's lead in half on a pair of RBI knocks in the third. The home team would not be held down for long, though, as the Islanders responded with one in the third and two in the fourth to build their advantage back up to five. Interestingly, none of these runs were driven in with hits either, as the first was brought home on another hit-by-pitch by senior
Austin Russell and the next two on a bases-loaded walk from sophomore
Will Stark and a groundout off the bat of senior
Isaac Webb.
The big hit for the Islanders finally arrived in the bottom of the seventh, coming off of the bat of junior
Karson Krowka. After Russell was hit by another pitch and pinch hitter
Trey Cruz walked to put two men on, Krowka lined an 0-1 pitch right down the right field line, plating both runners and putting the team in double digits once again. The final tally would come across soon after, with freshman
Dylan Snead bringing it in on an RBI fielder's choice to make it a dozen on the board.
The show on offense really helped out A&M-Corpus Christi's pitching staff, which was forced to run out five different pitchers after the early departure of starter
Gage Burdick. The star of the show on the mound was senior
David Dean, who took the bulk of the work by tossing 3.1 innings in relief while allowing just a lone unearned run on two hits and one walk while striking out three. The lefty's strong effort helped to maneuver the game to its later innings, where a pair of different arms in freshman
Bryson Shea and sophomore
Dante Cano managed to shut the door and lock up the series sweep. Shea entered for the eighth and worked scoreless with a pair of strikeouts to make it 13 in 7.2 shutout innings to begin his collegiate career, and Cano finished things off with a perfect ninth in just his second appearance of the young season.
The unique nature of Sunday's game reflected in the final box score, as the Islanders had just two players – Webb and Krowka – record a hit in the game, with both notching two apiece. The lineup made up for this with 13 walks and eight hit by pitches, though, which helped all but one starter reach base in some fashion multiple times. Stark led the way in the plate discipline category, drawing four walks to set a new single-game high for the team this year.
The Islanders will now turn around quickly for a big challenge in their next game, hitting the road to Austin to take on No. 15 Texas in a midweek matchup on Tuesday at 6:30 p.m.
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