CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas – The Texas A&M-Corpus Christi baseball team could not climb out of an early hole in its second game of the 2026 Kleberg Bank College Classic against Long Beach State on Saturday evening, fighting back throughout the night by ultimately losing by a final score of 10-5.
The Islanders (4-3) fell victim to the free pass on the mound throughout the course of the night, issuing 13 walks to the Dirtbags (2-4) after surrendering just 24 combined over their first six games of the season. These issues started in the opening frame, when Long Beach State scored two runs without even recording a hit after picking up four walks and two hit-by-pitches. The hosts did end up answering back in the bottom half of the frame, however, getting one of those scores back when junior
Matt Evans came up to the plate with two outs and drove a bouncing ball up the middle that brought home graduate
Austin Russell from second base.
After this early response, the Dirtbags ended up punching back, scoring one in the second and one in the fourth to make it a 4-1 ballgame. In the fifth, A&M-Corpus Christi tried once again to get itself back into things, starting the frame off with back-to-back singles from juniors
Isaiah Afework and
Hunter Azemar to get a rally of its own kicked off. Graduate
Karson Krowka would bring in Afework in the very next plate appearance by executing a perfect squeeze bunt, and after a groundout moved Azemar to third, he would race home on a wild pitch to plate the second run of the inning. Two more singles by Russell and senior
Jackson Smith would put the tying and go-ahead runs on the basepaths, but the Islanders were unable to cash in further from here, remaining in a one-run hole going into the game's latter stages.
Making matters worse after this was another outburst by Long Beach State, as the visitors got both of those runs back in the next half inning and then hit the knockout blow with four in the top of the eighth to bring the deficit up to 10-3. The Islanders did score two in the final frame on a pair of RBI singles by Smith and junior
Jayden Reynolds, but they would get no closer from there, striking out with a pair of runners on to end the game.
The best individual performers for A&M-Corpus Christi on the day were Russell and Smith, with the former reaching base three times and scoring one of the team's runs and the latter notching two hits of his own and picking up an RBI for good measure. Afework also joined these two with a pair of knocks, doing so while scoring two runs from the seventh spot in the order. On the mound, redshirt junior
Connor Schlect put together the best effort of the evening, coming in relief in the top of the first and escaping a bases-loaded jam before then tossing three more innings after this while only allowing one earned run and striking out two.
The Islanders will now wrap up the Kleberg Bank College Classic on Sunday with a power conference matchup, taking on Pittsburgh at Whataburger Field at 3 p.m.
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