CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas – The Texas A&M-Corpus Christi baseball team picked up its most consequential win of the 2025 season on Saturday evening, downing New Orleans by a final score of 11-5 to officially secure its spot in the 2025 Southland Conference Baseball Championship.
The Islanders (19-29, 11-18 SLC) entered the day tied with Nicholls for the eighth and final spot in the conference tournament, and thanks to two losses from the Colonels in their doubleheader against Southeastern, it left them needing just a lone win over their final two contests to lock up their playoff berth. A victory over the Privateers (25-23, 12-17 SLC) in the finale on Sunday would make A&M-Corpus Christi the No. 7 seed in the conference and send the team south to play UTRGV in Edinburg for the first round of the tournament, while a loss would make them the No. 8 seed and send them to play Southeastern Louisiana in Hammond.
Despite what the final score would indicate, the Islanders found themselves behind the eight ball early on in Saturday's contest, falling behind 2-0 in the first three innings of the game thanks to four different errors in what was some uncharacteristically poor defense for them. The hosts started their comeback effort right away, however, rallying for a pair of runs with two outs in the bottom of the third to level the score back up right away. With seniors
Chance Reisdorph and
Drake Kerr on the basepaths after a single and a hit by pitch, senior
Austin Russell came through with the first big swing of the frame, lacing a line drive into left center on a 0-2 count to bring in the Islanders' first run of the night. In the next plate appearance, senior
Isaac Webb followed suit with a base hit of his own, going through the hole in the left side to score Kerr and tie things up at two apiece.
A home run from the Privateers in the top of the fourth put the Islanders back in a hole once again, but they would proceed to respond with their biggest outburst of the day, exploding for five runs to not only get the lead back but build it up to a comfortable margin. The rally started with a walk from junior
Jackson Smith and a single by senior
Cade Sanchez, and as the third batter of the inning, junior
Christian Smith-Johnson cashed in with a base hit that brought about the game's second different even score. Junior
Karson Krowka put the team on top once again with a sacrifice fly two batters later, and on the big swing of the frame, Kerr bounced a ball up the middle past the drawn-in infield to score two more. Finally, the fifth and final run would come in on an error on a dropped third strike that helped Kerr advance 90 feet from third to make it 7-3.
This would be the last play of the game for a while, as rain and lightning in the area would delay play for one hour and 35 minutes. Once the contest resumed, A&M-Corpus Christi would turn back to senior starter
Zach Garcia, who surprisingly came back out to resume his start after previously tossing four innings while allowing just one earned run. The time in the locker room did not seem to phase the veteran lefty, as he surrendered just a lone unearned run through the rest of his outing to finish seven strong frames for his second straight quality start and seventh of the season in total. Garcia also managed to reach a significant milestone for the second week in a row, as after recording the final out of the second inning, he officially became the all-time leader in Islanders program history for career innings pitched with 294.1.
"It's just the conviction and the determination that he pitches with," Malone said on Garcia's outing. "He wants to compete as much as anyone in the stadium, and guys feed off that. I don't think it was about stuff, he was just in control the whole night with the determination that he would get to the finish line and hand the ball back to me with a big lead, and he did it."
The gutsy effort from Garcia was aided by even more scoring from the Islanders, reaching double digits with two runs in the bottom of the seventh on a sac fly by Russell and a run-scoring wild pitch that brought Webb home after he stole both second and third on consecutive pitches. This left freshman
Bryson Shea with more than enough of a cushion to finish things out on the mound in relief of Garcia, with the righty allowing one run but nothing more over the final two frames to lock down the win.
A&M-Corpus Christi's offense proved to be potent early and often on Saturday, recording 13 hits on the day while scoring multiple runs in four of eight possible innings. The team was led at the plate by Kerr, who set the table at the top of the order by going 3-4 with two RBI and four runs scored. Webb, Smith-Johnson, Reisdorph and senior
Mason Persons all got on the board with two hits apiece elsewhere in the lineup, and rounding things out was Russell, who reached base twice and matched Kerr with a pair of runs batted in.
The Islanders will now wrap things up in the series and regular season finale on Sunday, going for their second conference sweep of the year at 1 p.m. for first pitch.
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