BEAUMONT, Texas – The Texas A&M-Corpus Christi baseball team could not avoid the sweep at the hands of Lamar on Sunday afternoon, going cold offensively and getting taken down in the finale of their three-game series by a final score of 8-0.
The loss marked the first time that the Islanders (9-17, 1-8 SLC) were swept by the Cardinals (19-7, 6-6 SLC) in a series since 2019, when they also dropped three consecutive games in Beaumont while getting outscored 26-8. It also marked their sixth shutout defeat of the year and fourth in the last 10 days, which comes after they were not shut out a single time during the 2024 season.
After combining for 14 hits over the first two games of the series, the Islanders did not get the same traffic in the final one, tallying just four to go along with three walks across the entirety of Sunday. Despite this, the team did have some chances to get the offense going throughout the early innings, starting in the second when freshman
Tristan Crane doubled down the line in right field and junior
Karson Krowka drew a free pass to put on its first two base runners of the day. A strikeout would leave both of them where they stood, however, a fate that would also come about in each of the next two innings when A&M-Corpus Christi stranded senior
Mason Persons after a leadoff single in the third and senior
Cade Sanchez after a leadoff walk in the fourth.
Failing to capitalize on these chances early would haunt the Islanders at the plate later on, as they ended up becoming much harder to come by as the game progressed. From the fifth inning on, they were only able to put a pair of runners on base, with both coming on singles from senior
Austin Russell in the sixth and the eighth. Russell was only able to advance as far as second base after these, though, with a pair of Lamar pitchers taking the game to its conclusion with no damage allowed.
The struggles on offense meant A&M-Corpus Christi's pitchers needed to be in top form, and they were through the beginning of the game, with senior starter
David Dean sitting down the Cardinals over the first two frames. Dean's first and only hiccup of the game would arrive in the third inning, though, as the lefty ended up surrendering a pair of runs on a base hit up the middle with two outs by Lamar third baseman Zak Skinner. The Islanders' deficit would remain at a manageable two for most of the afternoon, but the Cardinals ended up breaking through in the later innings, scoring four in the seventh and two in the eighth to put things out of reach.
Individually, Russell was the only Islander to get on the board with multiple hits, which raised his average up to a team-leading .312 on the season. Beyond the first baseman, Crane tallied the only extra-base hit of the game for the team, and Persons rounded out those to record at least one knock. On the mound, Dean had the best performance, finishing 4.1 innings while allowing just two earned runs to bring his ERA down to 2.29, the best among all pitchers on the team.
The Islanders will now try to bounce back in their return to Chapman Field this week, first hosting Houston-Victoria in a rematch from a contest earlier in the season on Tuesday at 6 p.m.
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