A primary lesson from childhood: When your little brother steps up to challenge you, knock him back down. This weekend, the Texas A&M baseball team applied this lesson by sweeping, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi in a three-game series by a combined run total of 29-8.
Due to rain, the series was moved back a day, with one game on Saturday and a doubleheader on Sunday.
The Aggies flexed their muscles in the Saturday game as junior left-hander Zach Jackson threw a no-hitter in a 15-0 romp of the Islanders.
Jackson’s no-no was the 10th in A&M’s history and the first solo effort since Matt Blank shut down Texas-Pan American in the Aggies’ 1996 home opener.
Besides calling a great game for his pitcher, catcher Craig Stenson also helped carry the offense by going three-for-four and knocking in six runs.
The second game of the series proved to be more difficult for the Aggies, as they needed 10 innings to escape with a 4-3 win. For nine innings, Corpus Christi pitchers junior Mike Hatfield and senior Jorge Huerta slowed the Aggie bats, allowing just five hits before the 10th.
“(Hatfield) pitched well and did well early in the count,” said A&M head coach Mark Johnson. “And we never really did a good job of staying ahead of the count because he threw that breaking pitch in there on 0-0 and 1-0. He did a good job and their reliever did well too.”
In the bottom of the 10th, however, sophomore first baseman Coby Mavroulis, who had already homered and driven in two runs, nailed the ball to the right field fence, scoring sophomore shortstop Cliff Pennington from third to win the game. Pennington had led off the inning with a single and advanced to second on senior outfielder Cory Patton’s single. Both runners then advanced on a wild pitch, setting up Mavroulis’ game-winning hit.
“He threw me a down-and-in fastball, the same pitch that I hit a home run on earlier in the game, and I was just lucky enough to get enough of the bat on it to get it over (the right fielder’s) head,” Mavroulis said. “I just wanted to hit the ball as hard as I could and get it out into play somewhere.”
Mavroulis, who redshirted last year due to a back injury, finished the game three-for-four with a home run and three runs batted in.
“He’s a batter, and it’s fun to watch him play,” Johnson said. “He sat out last year and that wasn’t fun, so he’s got a lot of spark to him right now and he’s really getting after it.”
In the final game of the series, the rest of the Aggies’ offense quickly awoke from its one-game slumber to better their previous run total before the Islanders could record the first out. The five-run first inning could have been a lot worse for the Islanders if it wasn’t for an inning-ending triple play resulting from a great catch by center fielder Charles Carter.
Corpus Christi then fought back, making the score as close as 6-5 in top of the sixth when left fielder Mark Schlekewy hit a RBI double off the right field fence. But that’s as close as the Islanders got, losing eventually by a score of 10-5. The Aggies distanced themselves for good by scoring two runs in the bottom of that same inning.
The Aggies will again be in action this Tuesday in Huntsville against Sam Houston State at 7 p.m..