HAMMOND, La. – The Texas A&M-Corpus Christi baseball team picked up a huge win in the first game of its weekend series on Friday evening, jumping ahead out of the gates and hanging on late to down Southeastern Louisiana in Hammond by a final score of 7-5.
Breaking a trend from each of their previous five games dating back to last Friday, the Islanders (16-17, 5-10 SLC SLC) struck first blood in the series opener and did so in a big way, hanging four runs on the Lions (21-14, 10-6 SLC) in the top of the second to build up a nice early advantage. The first pair of these came on one big swing, as with two outs and a runner on second,
Christian Smith-Johnson ambushed the first pitch of his at bat out of the nine-hole and smashed it well beyond the left field wall for a two-run home run. This was not only Smith-Johnson's first longball of the season but his first in nearly two years, with his most recent also coming against Southeastern in the final game of the 2024 regular season for what was his seventh homer of his sophomore campaign.
The inning didn't stop here, either, with A&M-Corpus Christi loading the bases immediately after on an
Isaiah Afework hit-by-pitch, a
Cade Sanchez single and a
Jackson Smith walk. On the next plate appearance,
Jarrett Flaggert would also get hit by a pitch to keep the line moving, which would then be followed by an error on a grounder off the bat of
Jayden Reynolds that brought in Sanchez and made it 4-0.
After a brief respite in the third, the Islanders got back on the board in the fourth, taking advantage of another Lions mistake in the field to increase their lead up to six. After walks from Flaggert and
Hunter Azemar with a double from Reynolds sandwiched in between,
Matt Evans came up with the bases loaded and ripped a grounder to the second baseman that was misplayed, turning what could have been an inning-ending double play into two more runs to pad the early advantage.
This scoring helped to support
Chase Mayer on the mound, who turned in a fantastic effort in what was just his second start of the season after working his first nine appearances out of the bullpen. The lefty finished seven innings in his outing, the most by any Islanders pitcher in a single game this year, allowing just two earned runs on six hits while striking out three and walking none. Mayer worked efficiently and filled up the zone all day, throwing 70 percent of his 84 pitches for strikes and sitting Southeastern down in four batters or fewer in all but one of his innings, including retiring each of the final seven hitters he faced to end his day on a very high note.
The Lions finally managed to get going on offense after Mayer's departure with a run in the bottom of the eighth, but A&M-Corpus Christi was able to answer back, picking up a big insurance run in the next half inning to match this score and build the lead back up to four. The team led off the ninth by getting Reynolds on second on another fielding miscue, and after he advanced to third on a wild pitch, Azemar cashed him in with a liner into center for his first RBI of the night.
As it turned out, this run would turn out to be important, as after getting the first two outs of the inning via the strikeout, the Islanders surrendered a two-run homer and then a hit-by-pitch to bring the tying run up to the plate. Head coach
Scott Malone summoned
Luke Singleton out of the bullpen to secure the final out of the game, and he did so with no trouble, getting the chase on a high-and-tight breaking ball to pick up a massive strikeout and slam the door on his first save as a member of the program.
Despite only recording seven knocks on the day, A&M-Corpus Christi had every one of its nine members of the lineup reach base at least once, thanks in large part to a disciplined approach with seven walks drawn and two hit batsmen. The team ended up getting a pair of multi-hit performances on the day from Sanchez and Azemar, with the former going 2-5 with a run scored and the latter going 2-4 with an RBI and a run of his own. Smith-Johnson led the way with two RBIs on his dinger in the second, and Azemar, Flaggert and Evans all chipped in with one apiece.
The Islanders will now try to earn the big road series victory in the middle game of the set, returning back to Alumni Field on Saturday for first pitch at 6 p.m.
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