The No. 15 Texas A&M baseball team will kick off their three-day road series against No. 24 Georgia on Thursday.
The Aggies (20-6, 2-4 Southeastern Conference) are coming off a 5-3 win over A&M-Corpus Christi on Tuesday.
“I was proud of our guys,” head coach Rob Childress told 12thman.com after the win on Tuesday. “We hit balls hard all night long. We were able to grab the lead early. We set up some innings for Corpus, but we made some great plays and great pitches to minimize the damage and maintain the lead. ”
The Aggies got off to a quick start on Tuesday, scoring two runs in the first inning and pushing the score to 3-0 after the second. The first two scores came off a double by junior Michael Helman, who extended his hitting streak to 19 games on Tuesday. Helman also notched one walk and a run in Tuesday’s bout.
“We did a great job getting out to a good start,” sophomore Braden Shewmake told 12thman.com. “Michael [Helman] did a great job setting the tone with the double and we were off to the races from there. It seemed like I was always up to bat with guys on base and that’s just a tribute to the guys in the lineup taking good at-bats.”
Seven different Aggies tallied hits against A&M-Corpus Christi. Shewmake led the Aggies with three RBIs, while sophomore Hunter Coleman followed with two.
The Aggies are currently the only school in the nation with three pitchers ranked in the top 80 in ERA. Sophomore John Doxakis is 47th with 1.59, junior Stephen Kolek is 62nd with 1.70 and junior Mitchell Kilkenny is 78th with 1.86.
This weekend’s projected pitching matchups include Kolek and Georgia senior Chase Adkins on Thursday, Doxakis against Georgia freshman Emerson Hancock on Friday and Kilkenny versus Georgia freshman Ryan Webb on Saturday.
A&M is also ranked third in the nation in triples (12), 5th in WHIP (1.12), sixth in hits (305), eighth in double plays (27), eighth in BB/9inn (2.71), tenth in ERA (2.60) and tenth in K-to-BB ratio (3.12).
The Georgia Bulldogs moved to a 19-6 (5-1 SEC) record after defeating Charleston Southern 7-0 on Tuesday. The Bulldogs are on their longest win streak since 2013, having won seven straight games.
Against Charleston Southern, Georgia scored on six runs in the bottom of the third inning to post their second consecutive shutout.
Freshman Ivan Johnson led the Bulldogs with three hits and an RBI. Senior Keegan McGovern added one hit and one RBI for Georgia.
The matchup between A&M and Georgia will kick off at 4:02 p.m. CST on Thursday at Foley Field in Georgia. Game two is set for 6:02 CST p.m. Friday, with the final game in the series following on Saturday at 1:02 p.m. CST.