Coming into the weekend, Aggie baseball had matched up with Fresno State six previous times. They had lost all six of those matchups. This weekend however, A&M was the one doing the sweeping.
After two hard-fought pitchers’ duels the first two games, A&M finally got the bats rolling and cruised to a 12-1 win to complete the sweep of the Bulldogs Sunday afternoon.
“From the word go, hitters got after it and just smothered their pitching and defense,” senior pitcher Kyle Simonds said. “It really set the tone for the whole game for us.”
Friday night was the opening round of a tough fight for A&M. Two home runs, one solo shot from Hunter Melton and a two-run homer from Michael Barash, lifted A&M to a 3-2 win. Freshman pitcher Jace Vines earned the win after throwing 6 2/3 with six strikeouts.
‘Olsen Magic’ made an appearance Saturday afternoon. Fresno State jumped to a 2-0 lead but the feisty Aggies fought back to force extra innings. The Bulldogs took a lead 3-2 in the tenth but Ryne Birk’s deflected single tied the game then Walker Pennington smashed the walk-off double for the 4-3 Aggie win. Starting pitcher freshman Tyler Ivey was stellar, working seven full innings, allowing three hits while striking out 12.
On Sunday however, there were no dramatics.
A&M (15-1) began attacking the Bulldogs right out of the gate. Back-to-back doubles led off the game, one of which was a Pennington RBI to give A&M a 1-0 lead. Barash managed an RBI on a ground out then Birk put down a two-run single that gave A&M a 4-0 lead after one inning.
“From that point, it was game on from an offensive standpoint,” A&M coach Rob Childress said. “A lot of stressful baseball this week…it was nice to come out grab the lead early and then continue to build on it.”
The barrage of doubles continued leading off the second with Moss’ RBI double pushed the Aggie lead to 5-0. Boomer White followed up with an RBI single of his own to score Moss and make it a 6-0 advantage. Moss finished the day 4-for-6 with two doubles and an RBI.
In the fourth, Pennington scored on a Melton strikeout after stealing third then advancing home on an errant Bulldog throw. An RBI triple by Nick Banks pushed the lead to 8-0.
“I don’t know [if] we did anything different from the first two games,” Moss said. “We just tried to set the tone at the beginning of the game. I think it was important after [Simonds] got off to a good note pitching that we had to get out on a good note offensively and we were able to do that today.”
Fresno State got on the board with an Austin Guibor RBI single to cut the Aggie lead to 8-1.
A&M answered with another run in the fifth. With the bases loaded, White earned an RBI as he drew a walk to make it a 9-1 lead for A&M following five innings.
After struggling in his first few starts, Kyle Simonds produced another solid outing for the A&M pitching staff this weekend. He worked seven innings, allowing one unearned run on just three hits.
“Each week, we are working on what I need to do to get back to where I need to be mechanic wise…my delivery was slowed down a bit and worked on standing tall,” Simonds said. “The changeup really worked for me.”
After sputtering against the Bulldogs’ (11-5) talented pitching staff, the Aggie bats finally solved the Fresno State equation. After going 7-for-24 with runners on and 3-for-14 with runners in scoring position during the first two games of the series, A&M went 9-for-25 with runners on and 6-for-18 with runners in scoring position Sunday afternoon.
The Aggies also out-hit the Bulldogs by a 14 to 3 tally and Fresno State committed three errors on the day. Joel Davis decided to join the fun in the sixth. With a man on, he took a ball to right for a two-run homer that made the Aggie lead a comfortable 11-1 margin. Melton chipped in another RBI single to make it 12-1 in the seventh.
With the win, A&M completes its third sweep of the season. Next up, the Aggies renew the Lone Star Showdown as they host the arch-rival Texas Longhorns Tuesday night.