COLLEGE STATION, Texas – The Texas A&M-Corpus Christi baseball team took home its first defeat of the 2026 season on Tuesday evening, hanging close on the road with #24 Texas A&M for much of the night but ultimately falling by a final score of 8-3.
Coming off a historic opening series against Stonehill College last weekend in which they scored 45 runs and put 10 or more on the board in four straight games to open a season for the first time in program history, the Islanders (4-1) wasted no time getting their bats going against the nationally-ranked Aggies (4-0), jumping on the board first in the second inning on back-to-back home runs from graduate
Cade Sanchez and junior
Noah Cassie. The reigning Southland Conference Hitter of the Week Sanchez got the scoring opened up for A&M-Corpus Christi, getting his hands inside a 1-2 offering from starter Gavin Lyons and pulling it just over the left field fence next to the foul pole for his first longball of the year. The very next pitch, Cassie followed suit, going deep to dead center to double up the team's advantage just five batters into the game.
On the other side, junior
Easten Smith was given the assignment against an Aggies lineup that tallied 45 runs in three games over the weekend and more than held his own, tossing three scoreless innings while only surrendering a lone hit. The only real trouble that the righty ran into came in in his final inning when the hosts loaded the bases with two outs, but Smith was able to escape the jam with a groundout to hold the lead where it stood.
Texas A&M finally managed to wake up its bats after Smith's departure with a pair of home runs in the fourth and sixth innings to go ahead for the first time on the day, but the Islanders quickly punched back with a response in the seventh to level the score back up once again. The rally started at the beginning of the frame when Sanchez stayed red hot with a double, his third extra-base hit of the night and sixth on the young season, and after a pair of strikeouts, junior
Hunter Azemar came up clutch by lacing a line drive into left to score Sanchez and make it a 3-3 ballgame.
Unfortunately for the Islanders, though, they could not keep the Aggie offense off the board in the later innings, surrendering two runs in the bottom of the seventh and three in the eighth to fall behind once again. They did start to threaten in the final frame after another hit by Sanchez followed by a single from senior
Jackson Smith, but they were sat down without cashing in after this and were handed their first loss as a result.
The star of the show on the night was undoubtedly Sanchez, who went 4-4 on the evening with a homer, two doubles and an RBI to push his average on the year up to an absurd mark of .647. The other hits on the day belonged to the quartet of Smith, Cassie, Azemar and junior
Matt Evans, with Cassie's longball being the biggest swing from any non-Sanchez player on the team.
The Islanders will now head home and prepare for this weekend's Kleberg Bank College Classic, where they will play a trio of games at Whataburger Field against Cal State Bakersfield on Friday, Long Beach State on Saturday and Pittsburgh. Tickets for the three-day tournament can be purchased
here.
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