CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas – The Texas A&M-Corpus Christi baseball team secured the series victory in their last game of the weekend against McNeese on Sunday afternoon, coming alive offensively despite a steady rain throughout and taking home the finale by a final score of 9-5.
After getting a late start due to the weather, the Islanders heated up the bats in a hurry, responding to a Cowboys run in the top of the second with five in the bottom half of the frame to snatch the lead away and then build it up even further. They first began the big inning by bringing their small ball approach from Saturday's win into Sunday, getting a hit-by-pitch from leadoff hitter
Walker Freeman and then seeing
Christian Smith-Johnson reach on a sacrifice bunt that turned into an error on McNeese's pitcher and
Matt Evans get on with a bunt single of his own to load the bases. This brought up
Will Stark with a prime opportunity, and he took full advantage in just his second start of the season, roping a ball into the gap in left center field to bring everyone across the plate for a three-RBI double. This hit was Stark's first of the season to date, as he came in at 0-11 in mostly pinch-hit duty entering Sunday.
Still with a chance to add on more, A&M-Corpus Christi got going once again with two outs, starting with a bullet off the bat of
Jarrett Flaggert that deflected off the glove of the Cowboys' second baseman and into the outfield to allow Stark to race home from second. A wild pitch then advanced Flaggert to second, which put him in position to score on a booming double from
Jayden Reynolds that one-hopped the wall in left center and brought the score up to 5-1.
This lead would end up shrinking when McNeese posted a run in both the fourth and the fifth, but the Islanders then answered with a three-spot in the bottom of the latter, getting their cushion back and then tacking on one more for good measure. Following the same script as before, Flaggert led off the frame with a walk and quickly moved up on a bunt single from Reynolds and a sac bunt by
Hunter Azemar that put two in scoring position. In the next plate appearance, Freeman brought home Flaggert on an infield grounder to the right side, and after that, Reynolds would follow close behind on a passed ball to score the second run of the inning. To cap things off, Stark came up with traffic on the basepaths once again after a Smith-Johnson walk and an Evans hit-by-pitch and continued his big day, dropping a sinking liner in front of the center fielder for his second knock and fourth RBI of the game.
"He's an older guy that's been patiently waiting his turn for a window to get in, and he came through huge for us today," Islanders head coach
Scott Malone said about Stark. "He carried the water for the offense. He had the big hits and the big RBIs, and I'm super happy for him. He really managed some really big at-bats and gave the team some good energy, which goes a long way.'
The last of A&M-Corpus Christi's scoring came in the top of the seventh, as after the Cowboys put up two in the sixth, the team got one back on a big swing from Azemar. As the leadoff hitter of the frame, Azemar took an 0-1 pitch down the heart of the plate and crushed it out to left field, clearing the wall for the team's first homer of the weekend and his first longball as an Islander. The catcher also became the 10
th different member of the squad to homer in 2026, matching the amount from all of 2025 with 12 games to go.
While the offense was humming in this way, the Islanders also got a solid effort from two of their pitchers to help bring things to the finish line. The first arm to toe the rubber was
Connor Schlect, who took the ball for his third straight turn as the Sunday starter and put together a very interesting outing on his way to his second win of the year. In his five innings of work, Schlect did not strike anyone out while also not issuing a single walk or hit-by-pitch, relying completely on his defense throughout the entirety of his start. The righty ended up surrendering three earned runs on five hits, which proved to be enough to help him leave as the pitcher of record.
"I thought he had really good stuff," Malone said on Schlect. "I told him after the first inning that his stuff looked right today, and to just throw it down the middle and let it go. I thought everything was moving, and I didn't think they were having comfortable swings."
Schlect then gave way to
Preston Watkins out of the bullpen in the sixth, and in just his second game back from a nearly month-long injury absence, he ran into some early trouble, allowing three of his first four hitters to reach and giving up a pair of runs in his first inning. After this, however, Watkins was nearly spotless, sitting down nine batters in a row after a leadoff single in the seventh to lock down the four-inning save and secure the series win for A&M-Corpus Christi.
"We made a visit to Preston in the sixth after he walked somebody and told him that we needed the bulldog, and I thought he really took that challenge to finish that inning and then went the whole way to the house," Malone said about Watkins. "It was rhythm and tempo, especially the last six outs where he really sped up and got quick throwing strikes. If you throw a lot of strikes, it can get tough to hit sometimes, and both those guys threw a lot of strikes and made it tough on a good offense."
In the lineup, Stark led the way with his best game since joining the program prior to last year, going 3-4 with a double and four RBIs to nearly match his entire total from his previous 34 games played dating back to 2025. The other multi-hit game went to Reynolds, who picked up a double and an RBI himself en route to a 3-4 effort that raised his batting average on the year up to .326. Azemar notched the last remaining extra-base hit with his blast in the seventh, while Flaggert and Freeman joined the three with RBIs of their own.
"We talked Friday night after the loss about how after we won on Friday in our last two road series against Southeastern and UTRGV, the home team came out the next day and really gave it everything to turn the series back around quick, and I challenged these guys to be that home team on Saturday," Malone said. "Can we come back with high energy and play great baseball to turn a series around against a good, talented team who had a great offensive weekend? Those guys met that challenge and did it. They turned it around Saturday and gave us a chance to win the series today, and we went and won it. It was a great finish to a weekend."
The Islanders will now prepare for a very important week of conference games, first heading to Houston to make up their previously protested game against Nicholls on Wednesday at 12 p.m. before then going to San Antonio for a three-game weekend series against Incarnate Word.
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