EDINBURG, Texas – The Texas A&M-Corpus Christi baseball team earned a huge victory in the finale of its series with UTRGV on Sunday afternoon, heating up on offense early and getting some great pitching late to secure the win by a final score of 5-2.
The win clinched the weekend set for the Islanders (13-14, 3-8 SLC), which marked their first series victory over the Vaqueros (14-14, 9-6 SLC) since 2022. It was also their first conference series win of the season, helping them gain important ground in the Southland standings.
The start of the finale for the Islanders looked a lot more like their win on Friday than their defeat on Saturday, as they managed to catch fire from the very beginning of the game with three runs in the first to build up a nice cushion right out of the gates. The visitors got their first three hitters on base with a fielding error, a double by graduate
Cade Sanchez and a hit-by-pitch from senior
Jackson Smith, which set up redshirt junior
Jarrett Flaggert to cash in with a sacrifice fly to help strike first blood. On the very next plate appearance, junior
Max Towchik then came up big himself, lining a base hit right up the middle to plate both Sanchez and Smith and add on another pair to the ledger.
After two zeroes in the second and third innings, A&M-Corpus Christi got rolling once again at the plate in the fourth, kicking off another rally with a leadoff single from graduate
Karson Krowka and a double by senior
Christian Smith-Johnson to get two in scoring position with no one out. With the lineup flipped back up to the top, Sanchez picked up his first RBI of the day on a sacrifice fly, and Smith followed suit by lacing a double 102 miles per hour off the bat into deep left center that brought home Smith-Johnson and made it a five-run advantage.
At this point, UTRGV started its comeback effort, responding with two of its own in the bottom half of the same frame and then threatening to add more on multiple different occasions. In the sixth, a walk and two singles loaded the bases with one out against redshirt sophomore
Luke Robertson, but the righty escaped unharmed by inducing a ground ball to Flaggert at third that turned into a 5-3 double play. The Vaqueros then put three on once again in the eighth against junior
Nathan Mueller, who like Robertson before him walked the tightrope but got out unscathed, this time getting a foul popout to first followed by a groundball that he was able to corral and complete the out after it hit him on the backside and ricocheted in front of the mound.
With the three-run lead still holding strong, A&M-Corpus Christi sent junior
Chase Mayer to the bump to close things out against the heart of UTRGV's order, and he did so with no trouble, punching out No. 2 hitter Thomas Williams before then getting Southland home run leader Armani Raygoza to ground out and cleanup hitter Julius Ramirez to fly out harmlessly to right to put a bow on the big win. This was Mayer's second save of the series after he closed out Friday's victory as well and his third of the season, the most on the team thus far.
The leader in hits for the Islanders ended up being Krowka, who finished with three in his four plate appearances out of the eighth spot in the order. Smith and Towchik were the other members of the lineup to record multiple hits with two apiece, while Towchik was the only one to also tally multiple RBIs with his big swing in the first. On the mound, junior
Pierre-Luc Jacques tossed 3.2 innings while allowing two runs as the starter, and the trio of Robertson, Mueller and Mayer followed that up with 5.1 shutout frames to close it out.
The Islanders will now try to roll the momentum from this series into next week, first playing an exhibition game against the Corpus Christi Hooks at Whataburger Field on Tuesday before then returning back to Chapman Field for a three-game set against Stephen F. Austin starting Thursday at 6 p.m. and running through Saturday at 2 p.m.
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