NATCHITOCHES, La. – The Texas A&M-Corpus Christi baseball team could not salvage the finale of its three-game series with Northwestern State on Sunday afternoon, playing down to the wire but conceding late to fall by a final score of 4-3.
Unlike the early fireworks from the first two games, the finale of the set between the Islanders (10-10, 0-5 SLC) and the Demons (13-7, 6-3 SLC) saw pitching reign supreme in the first part of the contest, with sophomore
Bryson Shea battling Northwestern State's Trent Hillen from the first pitch. For the visitors, Shea kicked off his day in excellent form, sitting down each of the first 10 hitters that he faced while striking out four. On the other side, though, Hillen matched this nearly equally, retiring his first eight batters to bring the game into the third with zeroes all over the scoreboard.
The first streak to be broken in the game ended up being Hillen's, as for the third day in a row, A&M-Corpus Christi got on the scoresheet first with another two-out rally. The first traffic on the bases for the Islanders came via a walk from graduate
Karson Krowka and a single by junior
Isaiah Afework, which set the table for graduate
Cade Sanchez to drive home his 16
th and 17
th runs of the season with a two-RBI double off the wall in left field. In the next at-bat, redshirt junior
Jarrett Flaggert would then proceed to trade places with Sanchez, shooting the gap in left center for a two-bagger of his own to make it 3-0 in favor of the Islanders.
This lead would end up lasting for just a few innings, however, with the Demons responding with a run in the fourth and two in the fifth to knot the game back up at three apiece. The score would remain at that mark until the eighth, when the Islanders had a chance to break the tie after putting the first two hitters on via an Afework single and a Sanchez walk. A double play right after would take Sanchez off the basepaths but move Afework to third, and following another walk to put runners on the corners, a two-out ground ball ended up cutting off the threat before the go-ahead run could come across.
Making matters worse after this, Northwestern State cashed in on their chance in the bottom of the same frame, getting runners on first and third with one out and jumping ahead with an RBI fielder's choice. The Islanders then had one more opportunity to respond in the top of the ninth, but they were unable to start another rally, going down in order and taking home the tough defeat.
The production in the lineup for the Islanders on the day came entirely from the top third of their order, with the 1-2-3 of Afework, Sanchez and Flaggert going 5-11 with two doubles, three RBIs and three runs scored. On the mound, Shea gave up just two earned runs across 4.2 innings of work in what was a nice bounce back start, and junior
Chase Mayer pitched very well in relief despite being tagged with the tough-luck loss, tossing three innings of his own and surrendering just one run on two hits and a walk while punching out four.
The Islanders will now try again to earn their first conference win of the year in their next time out, returning back home to host Lamar for a three-game conference series at Chapman Field starting on Friday at 6 p.m.
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