In eight of the nine innings of Texas A&M baseball’s game against Grambling State, the Tigers held the Aggies to five hits and just a single run.
Unfortunately for Grambling State, A&M was able to send seven runners home during the second inning alone on it’s way to an 8-0 win in the first game of the Bryan-College Station Regional.
“It’s the thing we were trying to avoid,” Grambling State head coach Davin Pierre said. “…The thing for us was to try and avoid the big inning. If we could keep them from a five run, six run, seven run inning we felt really good about our chances.”
Junior SS Ali Camarillo got the scoring started in the second inning with an RBI single through the left side, and graduate DH Hayden Schott as well as Camarillo were able to scamper home on wild pitches to put the Aggies up 4-0.
A&M coach Jim Schlossnagle says the Aggies put a focus on baserunning ahead of the game, something that allowed them to capitalize on opportunities like the pair of wild pitches in the second inning.
“I thought base running was going to play a huge role in the game for our team,” Schlossnagle said. “I thought there are some things that — I don’t know if you could say exploit, but they have given up over 100 stolen bases on the season, so I felt like running bases was going to be a big part of the game.”
After sophomore CF Jace LaViolette’s sacrifice groundout gave A&M its fifth run, it was senior 1B Ted Burton — who started the inning with a leadoff double for the Aggies’ first hit of the game — that dropped a single into the gap in right center field to round out the Maroon and White’s explosive inning.
Burton wasn’t done: He finished out the Aggies’ scoring with another RBI single in the fourth inning to give A&M its final run.
“We wanted to land a lot of jabs instead of a haymaker punch,” Burton said. “And we did a great job of that…Base hit after base hit, swinging at good pitches.”
Then things settled into a bit of a lull — after the fourth inning, the Aggies mustered just two more hits.
No matter: A&M’s effort on the mound carried them through the rest of the way. After starter junior RHP Tanner Jones left after 3 1/3 IP, a trio of relievers in junior RHP Brad Rudis, freshman RHP Weston Moss and junior RHP Eldridge Armstrong III took over, combining for two hits and seven strikeouts. That’s despite the Tigers managing to put traffic on the base path in every inning apart from the ninth.
Schlossnagle said he opted for Armstrong and the others in relief in order to save some of the Aggies’ other arms for the rest of the regional: A&M faces the winner of Texas-Louisiana on Saturday.
“Hopefully we’ll play well enough and we’ll look back and see how big those seven outs were,” Schlossnagle said. “Get those seven outs, and we can save some of the other guys.”
