CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas – The Texas A&M-Corpus Christi baseball team could not complete the sweep of its series against Texas Southern in the finale on Sunday afternoon, falling victim to one big inning and dropping in run-rule fashion by a final score of 16-6 as a result.
After securing two wins over the Tigers (5-4) in a doubleheader on Saturday, the Islanders (8-4) could not hold the visitors off the scoreboard a day later, surrendering more runs on Sunday than they did in each game of their four-game winning streak coming in combined. The majority of this damage came on one singular explosion, as Texas Southern plated 10 runs on eight hits and three walks in the third inning to put A&M-Corpus Christi firmly behind the eight ball for the rest of the afternoon.
The first response to this outburst from the Islanders came in the bottom of the fourth, when they managed to plate three runs of their own to start chipping away at their big deficit. Like Texas Southern did in their big inning, the hosts started off the frame by loading the bases with no outs, doing so on a pair of walks by redshirt junior
Jarrett Flaggert and senior
Christian Smith-Johnson with a double from junior
Noah Cassie sandwiched in between. Junior
Jack Bergstrom would get the team on the board in the next plate appearance on a ground out that came just inches away from being an infield single, and after a strikeout right after, graduate
Austin Russell plated another in fortunate fashion after a collision with Smith-Johnson and the third baseman caused the ball to pop out on a tag attempt. Finally, senior
Jackson Smith brought in the final run of the inning on a single of his own, cutting the deficit down to seven.
Unfortunately for A&M-Corpus Christi, however, Texas Southern got its bats going again, scoring four in the fifth and two in the sixth to bring the game back into run-rule territory. A infield single by Smith-Johnson in the bottom of the fifth to plate Cassie was the lone answer for the Islanders the rest of the way, which brought the game to its abbreviated conclusion.
The only Islander to record multiple base hits on the day ended up being Cassie, who went 2-4 while scoring two of the team's four total runs. The other hits for the team went to Flaggert, Smith-Johnson and Smith, while Bergstrom also reached base twice with a pair of walks.
The Islanders will now look to bounce back in a midweek contest this coming week, hosting UTSA at Chapman Field on Tuesday at 6:30 p.m.
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