Aggie baseball is coming off the most entertaining weekend of baseball all season. After dropping a game to California, A&M won their way through the winners’ bracket to win the College Station Regional. For the first time since 2011, and the sixth time in program history, Texas A&M will play in the NCAA Tournament Super Regionals.
Over the weekend, A&M received standout performances by Matt Kent, Nick Banks and Logan Nottebrok. A&M must now shift their attention to Super Regional play, where they will take on in-state foe TCU in a best-of-three series beginning Saturday in Fort Worth, Texas.
“Another week, another challenge,” said A&M Head Coach Rob Childress. “We were able to put last weekend to bed and start a new week today. The new challenge is TCU on the road, a team that did exactly what we did … Both teams are feeling really good about themselves.”
The Horned Frogs (47-12) come into the Super after a thrilling weekend of their own. After also having to play through the losers’ brackets, TCU overcame an 8-1 deficit against NC State to win their Regional and advance. TCU has a very well rounded club, with depth both in their pitching staff and their dangerous lineup. Offensively, TCU has multiple players that can inflict damage. Four players have more than 30 RBIs, led by Evan Skoug (43), who also leads the team with seven home runs this year. Cody Jones will be a huge threat on the bases, going 85 percent (29-for-34) on stolen base attempts this season.
As mentioned, A&M (49-12) received big time performances all around last weekend. From Regional MVP pitcher Matt Kent, to clutch pinch hitting by Ronnie Gideon, to multiple defensive plays by Logan Nottebrok, the Aggies and TCU matchup well together. The Aggies have multiple weapons on offense at their disposal, but Nick Banks and Logan Nottebrok had the biggest weekends. The two combined to hit .333 during the regional, with eight RBI and three home runs.
The Aggie pitching staff came through for A&M all weekend. Performances from Ryan Hendrix, Grayson Long, Andrew Vinson and Matt Kent helped propel the Aggies to the Regional win. Kent was named the Regional MVP, after pitching 14 total innings during the weekend, scattering 11 total hits and allowing only one earned run, while he struck out 14. He pitched the regional championship game on two days rest in a performance that will go down in Aggie lore.
“I really can’t thank the bullpen enough for what they did for us,” said Aggie catcher Michael Barash. “They were there all weekend … to compete out there with our guys every day was awesome … the way our team is set up we don’t care who we are playing or when, we’re going to play as hard as we can.”
Saturday, Grayson Long will likely be the starter for A&M. In his last outing against California, he worked 6 2/3 innings, surrendering one earned run on 10 hits.
Coming into the College Station Regional, defense was one of the biggest issues for A&M. Throughout the weekend, A&M only had only two errors and turned seven double plays, which during the regular season was a bit of an Achilles Heel. To be successful in Fort Worth, A&M must be on their best defensive game.
A&M and TCU will meet on the diamond for the 253rd time in program history. A&M leads the all-time series 160-88-4. The two last met in the College Station regional in 2012, where the Horned Frogs beat A&M 10-2 to eliminate them from the NCAA Tournament. Both teams were considered for national seeds in the tournament, but TCU was rewarded one while A&M was not, and it was the center of much debate. This weekend, the debate will be settled. Loser will go home, and the winner will move on to the College World Series in Omaha.