No. 15 Texas A&M’s midweek contest against Incarnate Word remained close for a while, but a five-run sixth inning, a near-perfect relief outing by Lee May Gonzalez and a monster night by Joel Davis propelled the Aggies (8-1) to a convincing 12-5 victory.
Davis went 4-for-4 at the plate with a home run and two triples, Cole Bedford went 4-for-5 with two doubles and two runs scored and Blake Kopetsky hit two triples of his own as the Aggies exploded for their third-straight game scoring at least nine runs.
“You have to give props to the bullpen,” Davis said after the game. “Lee May [Gonzalez] came out and started shutting them down and that was really big for us. It stopped the momentum. Then our offense had really good at bats. We were covering the plate really well, so it was a big night for us.”
The visiting Cardinals (5-5) immediately jumped on A&M starter Kaylor Chafin with two first-inning runs, both of which were unearned due to an error by second baseman Braden Shewmake that allowed leadoff hitter Mark Whitehead to reach base.
The Aggies responded right back with two runs of their own, however, as Nick Choruby led off the bottom of the first with a walk and moved to third on a double by Logan Foster. Shewmake drove in Choruby with an RBI groundout and Kopetsky scored Foster later in the inning with his first triple of the night.
After Incarnate Word scratched across another run off Chafin in the second, the Aggies went ahead for good with a two-run fourth courtesy of another Kopetsky triple. After Walker Pennington worked a one-out walk, Kopetsky tripled down the right field line to score Pennington, and moments later Davis plated Kopetsky with an RBI single.
As a team the Aggies racked up 15 hits, nine of which went for extra bases.
“On a tough night to hit, we proved that we could hit,” head coach Rob Childress. “We stayed flat to the middle of the field — our approach was great. We had quite a few more [base hits] than we did last night.”
Meanwhile, Gonzalez (1-0) was putting together a gem on the mound. The junior from Corpus Christi allowed only two base runners in four scoreless innings of relief to record his first win as an Aggie. He struck out six and walked none.
“This is three years for me,” Gonzalez said. “It is something that I have been waiting for and I was just very excited to have the opportunity to get on the mound in a game that was tight at the time. The offense did a good job of separating it toward the end, but it was just exciting to get in.”
With Gonzalez’s night done, the Aggies continued to pile up the hits and runs. In the sixth, two singles and a walk set up Shewmake to come through with an RBI single. After two strikeouts, Davis crushed a bases-clearing triple to right and scored a few pitches later on a wild pitch to give the Aggies a 10-5 advantage.
The Aggies tacked on another run in the both the seventh and eighth innings on run-scoring hits by Shewmake and Austin Homan, respectively. Shewmake went 2-for-4 on the night with a double and three RBI. In the last three games, the freshman has gone 8-for-13 at the plate with six RBI, five runs scored, three doubles and a home run.
Cason Sherrod, who grabbed the closer job over the weekend, pitched the ninth inning and gave up his first two runs of the season.
The Aggies will take their three-game win streak to Houston this weekend as they participate in the Shriners Hospital for Children College Classic. A&M will play three games at Minute Maid Park with the first one coming Friday against Texas Tech. First pitch is slated for 3:30 p.m. and the game will be televised on Fox Sports Net.
Aggies pull away from Incarnate Word late in 12-5 win
March 1, 2017
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