In their final matchup of a three game trip at the Frisco College Baseball Classic, Texas A&M took down Cal 9-5 to earn win number 11 of the season. The Aggies dropped the first game of the trip to LA Tech on Friday before winning against Baylor 5-4 last night.
“I’m proud of the way the guys bounced back after Friday,” Texas A&M head coach Rob Childress said to 12thman.com. “When you talk about preparing for a regional, if you lose on the opening day, you have to pick yourself up and get back to work. We did that the last two days.”
The game featured lively at-bats from the Aggies, who scored their nine runs off 13 hits in four different frames. Sophomore Braden Shewmake led the team at the plate, going 3-for-5 with one run and two RBIs.
Starting pitcher Mitchell Kilkenny also had a strong outing, pitching seven full innings, giving up just two runs on seven hits, walking none and striking out seven. 
“We didn’t even need to talk about what needed to be done today,” Childress said to 12thman.com. “After all the walks yesterday, Mitchell knew we had to pound the zone today. He gave us 7.0 solid innings. He didn’t get rattled by the two run home run. He just went back to work and attacked the zone.”
A two-run home run from Cal’s Jonah Davis began the game’s scoring in the top of the second inning. Texas A&M responded right away with a single and a double that were driven in by a single from sophomore Chris Andritsos shortly after. Junior George Janca followed with an RBI single to put the Aggies up 3-2 heading into the third.
After a 1-2-3 inning from Kilkenny, sophomore Logan Foster hit his second double of the game to drive in a run for the Aggies, resulting in Cal making an early pitching change in the third inning. Andritsos got the best of Erik Martinez early, putting across Texas A&M’s fifth unanswered run with a sac-fly. 
The Aggie faithful put their well-known “ball five” chant to use in the bottom of the fourth, resulting in Martinez pitching nine consecutive balls and forcing Cal to replace him with Arman Sabouri. Shewmake showed no mercy, pushing two teammates across the plate with a single that bounced off of second base. 
The sixth inning was another three up, three down for Kilkenny who continued through the seventh before the Aggies brought in freshman Asa Lacy in the top of the eighth. A highlight of the game came when Janca made a diving backhand catch in the corner to end the inning and help Lacy retire all three batters faced.
Some scoring came late, as freshman Zach Deloach hit a ball to right-center field to drive in two and push the Aggie’s run total to nine. Cal made a push in the final inning with a three-run home run from Sam Weznick to cut the Aggie lead to four, but Texas A&M held on to win and improve to 11-1 on the season. 
“It’s great when you can have such a young lineup, but when you look up and down the order you don’t think they’re young,” Childress continued to 12thman.com. “We have some very advanced freshmen and sophomores in the lineup and that’s credit to the guys Coach (Justin) Seely has brought in and how hard Coach Seely and Coach (Will) Bolt have worked with them.”
The Aggies next action will come on Tuesday and Wednesday when they will host the Demons of Northwestern State in a two-game series at Blue Bell Park.