The Texas A&M baseball team extended its hot streak against ranked opponents on Tuesday, April 19 in a 14-1 win over No. 25 Dallas Baptist at Blue Bell Park. With the win, the Aggies have now accumulated seven wins over ranked opponents this season.
Heading into the first, A&M carried over its success at the plate from the win over then–No. 8 Georgia in the last outing. With one out, junior Jack Moss was able to drive in the first run of the day on a single. Juniors Brett Minnich and Austin Bost would follow this with back-to-back homers, giving the Aggies an early 4-0 lead. DBU junior RHP Zach Heaton became rattled on the mound, and the A&M student section was unrelenting, leading to the first change on the mound for DBU. Two batters later, sophomore Logan Britt gave the Aggies their third of what would turn into five total homers on the game.
“Being able to put up big runs like that in back-to-back games is big for us,” graduate Troy Claunch said. “It shows that it wasn’t a fluke. We’re hoping to continue doing that going into this weekend.”
Freshman lefty Ryan Prager had a great outing on the mound in his first win as an Aggie. Over his four innings pitched, Prager allowed no hits through three innings before allowing three in the fourth along with DBU’s sole run of the day.
After the dominant first inning, the Aggies would go on to score in each of the remaining innings, including a homer from Claunch and a second homer from Britt. The DBU bullpen struggled to respond as a total of eight different pitchers would come to the mound for the Patriots. Heading into the seventh the Aggies had achieved a 14-1 lead, causing the game to end via run rule.
Over the past two games alone, the maroon and white have tallied up a whopping 37 runs and 31 hits. After struggling on offense during the earlier part of the season, the Aggies have really been able to find their stride at the plate. With seven of A&M’s twenty-three wins now coming against ranked opponents, coach Jim Schlossnagle described his team’s mentality heading into these matchups that has led to this much success.
“We talked about it before the game, how Dallas Baptist is a ranked team, the second best RPI team in the country and coming off a super-regional last year,” Schlossnagle said. “I think we’re better suited for underdog mentality or being more desperate to win. No disrespect to anybody we play, but I think that is the mentality of this game. When you win one, you want to win two, and when you win two, you want to win three. The best teams are the ones who are most desperate to win.”
The Aggies will head into their toughest series of the season thus far on Friday, April 22 when No. 3 Arkansas comes to College Station for the first of three.
