CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas – The Texas A&M-Corpus Christi baseball team put together a very impressive performance in exhibition action against the Corpus Christi Hooks at Whataburger Field on Tuesday evening, scoring early and pitching excellent down the stretch to walk away with a 4-4 tie against their professional neighbors.
The meeting downtown was the fourth-ever between the Islanders and the Hooks, the Double A affiliate of the Houston Astros, with the two teams previously squaring off back in 2013, 2022 and 2024. This was A&M-Corpus Christi's first time taking home a positive result however, as they had dropped each of these prior three matchups.
After surrendering the first runs of the game in the bottom of the second on a two-run home run from Hooks third baseman Pascanel Ferreras, the Islanders responded with a scoring frame of their own the next half inning to get on the board themselves. Junior
Jayden Reynolds first got traffic on the basepaths with a single up the middle, and in the next plate appearance, junior
Max Towchik lined a base hit of his own through the right side, which allowed Reynolds to first move up to third and then come racing home when right fielder Luis Baez misplayed the ball out in the grass.
The Hooks got this run back with another home run in the third off the bat of Astros' No. 14 prospect Joseph Sullivan, but A&M-Corpus Christi would again match this with an answer in the very next frame, this one to put them out in front for the first time on the day. This rally kicked off right away, with junior
Hunter Azemar drawing a leadoff walk on a seven pitch at-bat and graduate
Austin Russell bouncing a single through the right side to move Azemar up to third. With runners now on the corners, senior
Christian Smith-Johnson came through with the first big hit, finding the grass in right for a single of his own to score Azemar and bring the Islanders to within one. Immediately following this, junior
Walker Freeman took a 1-0 offering and smoked it down the line in right for a double that brought in both Russell and Smith-Johnson, giving the team a 4-3 lead.
From here, it was the pitching that shined for the Islanders, as a group of six arms combined to allow just a lone run and three total hits the rest of the way to bring the night to its conclusion. The last 3.2 frames were especially impressive, a run that started in the bottom of the sixth when junior
John Paul Buckner entered with the bases loaded and one out and escaped the jam with just one inherited run scored after getting a ground out and a strikeout. Buckner then worked a 1-2-3 seventh, which was then emulated by junior
Brock Thorndell in the eighth and redshirt junior
Kade Budd in the ninth, with the latter punching out the final two hitters of the game in what was a impressive showing for the Corpus Christi native and London High School product against his hometown team.
On offense, the Islanders ended up outhitting the Hooks 8-5, a showing led by multi-hit performances from Russell, Reynolds and Freeman, the last two also notching the team's two extra-base hits on the day in the form of a triple and double respectively. Smith-Johnson and Towchik picked up the other two knocks on the day, with the former also recording an RBI and scoring a run to boot. On the mound, A&M-Corpus Christi got scoreless outings from four different pitchers, with those being the aforementioned trio of Buckner, Thorndell and Budd as well as junior
Chandler Fowler, who worked a clean fifth inning.
The Islanders will now get back to their regular season schedule over the weekend, hosting Stephen F. Austin for a three-game set at Chapman Field that begins on Thursday at 6 p.m.
Click here to see full box score and play-by-play.
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