CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas – The Texas A&M-Corpus Christi baseball team ended the 2026 Kleberg Bank College Classic in style on Sunday afternoon, using an excellent day on the mound and some timely hitting at the plate to take down Pittsburgh by a final score of 5-2.
The win was the first for the Islanders (5-3) over the Panthers (4-2) in the all-time series, coming after they had previously dropped the first two during the weekend of the 2024 Kleberg Classic. It also marked the first power conference victory for the team since they took down UCLA in the opening game of last year's Kleberg Classic and their seventh such win since the start of the 2020s.
"We needed this one," Islanders head coach
Scott Malone said. "When the wins were coming for us last week, we told the guys to not take them for granted because sometimes they disappear on you, and here we were after a couple losses in a row wondering when we were going to win one again. That's the hard thing about sports, but I thought we had energy and got the dugout and the crowd going. That's how you draw it up."
Looking to snap what had been a three-game losing streak coming in, the Islanders got some early offense going, plating two runs in the bottom of the second to put Pitt in a multi-run deficit for the first time all weekend. This rally started with a single by graduate
Cade Sanchez and a hit-by-pitch to junior
Max Towchik, and after the former was moved to third on a fielder's choice, junior
Jayden Reynolds came up and bounced a high chopper in the infield that earned him a base knock and brought in Sanchez for the first score of the game. One batter later, junior
Jack Bergstrom doubled up this advantage, lacing a liner over the head of the second baseman to make it a 2-0 game.
Another two spot in the fourth would set A&M-Corpus Christi up nicely, with the next pair of runs coming on a double steal that allowed Reynolds to race home easily from third base and a perfectly placed double down the right field line by graduate
Austin Russell that made it a four-run lead. This all helped to support sophomore
Bryson Shea on the mound, who took the ball for his second start of the young season and gave the team four scoreless innings while punching out four hitters. Shea did have to work around some traffic after issuing four free passes, but he managed to do so unscathed, stranding the bases loaded in the third and two runners in scoring position in the fourth to end his day with a zero still on the board.
"I thought the command actually played for him today," Malone said about Shea. "His downfall is usually hits and being in the middle of the zone, but today he pitched around the zone and kept them very uncomfortable. Every time he needed one more big pitch, I thought he reached back. That's a junior or senior thing, and he's doing it as a sophomore and starting to look like a veteran."
The biggest trouble of the game for the Islanders came in the fifth after Shea's departure, when the Panthers managed to plate their first run of the day while also loading the bases to putting the go-ahead run on first base with just one out. Junior
Easten Smith was the one summoned to try to work out of this jam, and after allowing one inherited runner to score on a sacrifice fly, he slammed the door on Pitt's scoring chance, picking up a massive strikeout on a 3-2 count to keep the hosts in front 4-2.
The Islanders would end up picking up another insurance run in the seventh on another RBI single by Reynolds, but as it turned out, they would not need it, as Smith turned in a masterful effort to take the game all the way to the finish line with no further damage. The righty from Glenn Heights was nearly perfect throughout the remainder of his outing, sitting down 12 of the final 14 hitters of the game while allowing just one hit and one walk in his 4.2 innings of work. This included a punchout of the final hitter of the ballgame, which helped lock him his first win since joining the program prior to last season.
"It was a combination of mentality and stuff," Malone said about Smith. "I thought it was all on, and he got after those guys. Down the stretch more than anything, it was also guts. The stuff kind of leveled out and they started seeing it better, but as an older guy, he said 'I'm finishing this thing' with that kind of mentality. I'm excited for him, and I have to find a way to get him in more games."
A&M-Corpus Christi had control of the game on the offensive end for most of the game, outhitting a Pitt team that had just scored 14 runs against Cal State Bakersfield the day before by a total of 11-3. The top individual performer in the lineup ended up being Reynolds, who got his first start of the season and proceeded to go 3-4 with two RBIs and a run scored out of the eighth spot in the order. Beyond him, three other Islanders also picked up multi-hit games, with those being Russell, Bergstrom and senior
Jackson Smith, who combined to pick up six of the team's knocks on the day. On the mound, Shea and Smith totaled 8.2 incredible innings, giving up just three hits between them and punching out nine hitters.
The Islanders will now return back to campus for a midweek matchup in their next time in action, hosting Prairie View A&M at Chapman Field on Tuesday at 6:30 p.m.
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