After back-to-back losses for Texas A&M baseball in Saturday’s doubleheader against No. 1 Arkansas, the Aggies responded with an 11-10 shootout win on Sunday, April 18.
The win is A&M’s second win over a top-5 team this season despite the Aggies’ 21-17 overall record and 4-11 record in SEC play. Senior first baseman Will Frizzell led the Aggies’ bats in Fayetteville on the day, hitting 3-for-4 with 3 RBIs.
“I’m just incredibly proud of our team and the toughness that we showed after the first game yesterday to bounce back,” A&M coach Rob Childress said. “To have the game in the balance late and again today, for us to come out and do what we did offensively and mix and match out of the bullpen and do just enough to find a win today is incredibly important as a finish to the first half of conference play.”
Joining Frizzell’s offensive efforts was junior second baseman Hunter Coleman, who hit a three-run home run with two outs in the sixth inning to pad A&M’s lead from 7-4 to 10-4. The runs proved vital, as the Razorbacks fired back in the bottom of the inning with three runs in the bottom of the inning.
“I had a lot of guys tell me, ‘You know what to expect,’” Coleman said. “I got up into an advantaged count and was looking for one pitch and he threw it right there. I think we were up on the barrel all day and getting two out hits, that just happened to be one of them.”
Freshman pitcher Nathan Dettmer received the day’s start and pitched through four innings, striking out four while allowing five hits, four runs and three walks. Holding onto a one-run lead with two outs to go in the ninth inning, senior pitcher Chandler Jozwiak stepped to the mound and struck out the final two batters for his fifth save of the season.
“I’ve been there before so Coach trusts me, I trust [Mikey Hoehner] behind the plate, I trust the defense behind me to get it done and they trust me,” Jozwiak said. “It’s not much pressure when it’s your job and that’s what you’re supposed to do.”
A&M called the name of six different pitchers on the day, and the six combined for 12 strikeouts. Arkansas also played six pitchers that struck out seven batters in the slugfest.
“Definitely a little shot in the arm of confidence,” Coleman said. “After a rough day yesterday, I think we bounced back and answered the bell. It would have been easy to show up and kind of lay down, but that shows you how much fight we have. I’m really proud of our offense.”
Arkansas had proven its offensive prowess this season prior to Sunday, scoring 50 runs in its last four games and 10 or more runs in 11 games. A&M had only scored double-digit runs five times, yet managed to battle out the high-scoring win.
“We’ve always kept our confidence up, our attitude up,” Jozwiak said. “That’s part of the SEC. You’re going to have your slumps, you’re going to get down sometimes but you have got to stay together, you’ve got to keep the confidence and the attitude there. All it takes is one pitch, one win and you can go from there and that’s the plan from now.”
The Aggies will host Texas Southern on Tuesday, April 20 at 6:30 p.m. before opening the second half of SEC play on Friday, April 23 against No. 3 Tennessee. The games on Friday, Saturday and Sunday will begin at 6:30 p.m., 5 p.m. and 1 p.m., respectively.
“Any time you can come into a place like Arkansas and win Game 3 and feel good about yourself going home, I think it’s definitely going to translate into some confidence and get the ball rolling in the right direction as we move into the second half of conference,” Coleman said.