CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas – The Texas A&M-Corpus Christi baseball team could not come away with the sweep of Incarnate Word in the finale on Sunday afternoon, failing to mount a comeback for the second day in a row and falling by a final score of 9-3.
Even with the loss, the Islanders (16-27, 8-16 SLC) still earned the series victory against the Cardinals (17-27, 3-21 SLC), their second in conference play after also doing so against Stephen F. Austin from April 4-7. After the weekend of play, they sit in a tie with Nicholls for the eighth and final spot in the Southland Conference Tournament with six games left to go.
After mounting an impressive late-inning comeback in the second game of the set the day before, the Islanders found themselves needing to do so again on Sunday, falling behind from the outset after UIW hung three runs on the board against freshman starter
Bryson Shea. They would respond for their first score of the game in the bottom of the third, when after senior
Drake Kerr led off the frame with a hit-by-pitch and advanced to third base on a groundout and a wild pitch, senior
Cade Sanchez lifted a fly ball into shallow right field that proved just deep enough for Kerr to score after the second baseman was forced to make a tough play over the shoulder.
A response by the Cardinals in the top of the sixth on a two-out RBI knock would put A&M-Corpus Christi back in a three-run hole, but the team would punch right back an inning later, scoring two on one big swing by senior
Trey Cruz. With junior
Christian Smith-Johnson on second base after a leadoff bunt single and a stolen base, Cruz jumped on a 1-1 offering and sent it just to the right of the batter's eye in center field for a two-run home run, pulling the Islanders to within one. This was Cruz's first home run since March 25 and his sixth of the season overall, pulling him back into a tie with junior
Jackson Smith for the team lead.
Unfortunately for the Islanders, the Cardinals would find their power stroke in the later innings, putting up five unanswered runs in the final two innings to pull away late. The first two of these came on one swing of the bat in the eighth to put UIW back up by three once again, and the last bunch all came in the ninth to put the nail in A&M-Corpus Christi's coffin. The team did have a few cracks to answer back, but it ended up going down in order in each of the last two frames.
When the game was put in the books, the Islanders ended up tallying seven hits in total, with every single one coming from a different member of the lineup. Cruz's home run was the only extra-base hit of the bunch, and the only RBI outside of that came on Sanchez's sacrifice fly.
The Islanders will now take the week to prepare for an important matchup next weekend, traveling north to take on Houston Christian for their final road series of the year. The tilt against the Huskies is a three-game set, with the opener set for Friday at 6:30 p.m.
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