In a dominant opening weekend, Texas A&M club baseball overtook the University of Miami early in Game 1 to finish the three-game series sweep at Travis Fields in Bryan on Feb. 8–9. The Aggies put on a show in the Saturday doubleheader, outscoring Miami 7-3 in the first game and shutting out the Hurricanes 5-0 in the second game. The team impressed the home crowd with a 10-1 victory in the final matchup on Sunday to close out the series.
In Game One, A&M and Miami were tied at 3 before economics junior and right fielder Zane Councill broke the game open in the second inning, hitting a two-run RBI triple to move the Aggies into the lead with a score of 5-3. A&M scored twice more in the second inning to end the game 7-3.
“It’s nice to get the first [game] out of the way,” Councill said after the game. “We got our new guys starting Game 2, and it’ll be fun to watch them and see what they’ve got. Gotta hit the ball, play good defense behind the pitcher, and that’s as simple as it gets.”
A&M dominated in Game 2 as aerospace engineering senior and pitcher James Sattler shut out the Hurricanes. Sattler had the best showing on the mound of the weekend with nine strikeouts in 78 pitches.
“I wanted to focus on throwing strikes,” Sattler said. “We know they’re a decent hitting ball team, and I want to force them to put the ball in play. [In the third game], we’ll just focus on the same thing we did — have fun, play baseball. We don’t wanna be loose or anything like that, but we’ll play hard and have fun.”
The Aggies sealed the series in the third game, beginning with six runs in the first inning. The defense held Miami to one run to end with a final score of 10-1.
Civil engineering senior and head coach Aaron Dickerson was pleased with his team’s performance throughout the weekend, noting the sweep was everything he expected from the Aggies.
“This is how we usually do it,” Dickerson said. “We play this well and outscore them a lot most of the time, so this is not uncommon. Hitting-wise, I think we pretty much from the start hit extremely well, and it’s a great sign for the rest of the season. I expect to dominate from the mound, and hitting-wise we can only get better from here. With our success this weekend, I expect the upcoming games to be just as successful.”
A&M club baseball travels to Franklin to play a four-game weekend tournament on Feb. 21–22 against Colorado and Iowa before closing out the weekend against Texas.
