Eight scoreless innings for No. 24 Texas A&M baseball turned into bubble fever at Olsen Field in the bottom of the ninth thanks to a walk-off single from freshman shortstop Boston Kellner. A pitching duel ruled the night, but the Aggies found a hit and a way to continue their five-game winning streak.

“When he came up to bat, I felt really good,” head coach Michael Earley said. “Felt really good, just because his at-bats he’s had nothing to show for, but he was a really good player.”

Coming off an 8-3 win in its midweek tussle against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, A&M looked to continue the offensive magic as it entered the last series of the homestead against the Quakers on Friday, Feb. 20. 

Redshirt junior left-handed pitcher Shane Sdao took the mound for his second start of the season. Allowing a career-high four earned runs on opening day against Tennessee Tech, he was able to turn around and put up another career high, this time in strikeouts. 

“Shane gave us a chance to win,” Earley said. “ … I thought he did an incredible job. He filled up the strike zone. Again, he’s just continued to get better and better, I mean he’s got really elite stuff.”

Sdao found the zone early in the outing, boasting six strikeouts through the first three innings. The Montgomery native ran into fourth-inning troubles, loading the bases but a pop-up to left field bailed Sdao out and prevented any runs from coming across home plate. 

Getting the ball for the Quakers in their first game of the season was senior right handed pitcher Jake Moss. The first two innings saw early singles off Moss, but the Maroon and White ran into the same problem they saw in their previous four games: leaving runners on base, completing the game with nine runners left on base off of the seven Aggie hits. 

“And there’s a couple moments where some guys are up and they just took bigger swings than they take when they’re really good, right?” Earley said. “Like, everyone wants to drive that guy in, you know?”

The bottom of the fourth finally cracked the Penn pitching, as Moss loaded the bases with the top of the order due up. But an infield pop-up from junior first baseman Gavin Grahovac sent the Aggies back to the dugout as the stalemate continued. 

The extended inning seemed to put Sdao right back into his rhythm, this time looking to his defense to put away outs, a contrast to his six strikeouts from the first three innings. 

A fifth-inning single from senior designated hitter Wesley Jordan sent Moss packing as the Quakers called to their bullpen for senior RHP Thomas Shurtleff. Fourteen pitches and two batters faced later, the Aggie offensive drought continued. 

A&M had yet to see slow bats in its previous outings, smashing Tennessee Tech 45-14 in its three-game series. The Aggies also came out on top of the Islanders, 8-3, where it saw fire from three freshman bats. 

Through seven scoreless innings, it now looked like an Aggie-on-Quaker pitching battle, as a 0-0 contest could turn one mistake on either side into a game-winning run. 

After allowing only three hits and notching a career-high seven strikeouts from 67 strikes in his 86 total pitches, Sdao was relieved in the eighth, leaving it up to the bullpen to keep the Quaker offense from lighting up. Senior LHP Ethan Darden did just that, putting the 3-4-5 order of the Aggie lineup back up to the plate. 

The Maroon and White’s hope for runs in the bottom of the eighth started the same way almost every other inning had before: a quick base runner followed by a timely defense. Duer lit up with an early single-turned-double thanks to a Quaker fielding error that got him into scoring position, but two infield groundouts ended the Aggies’ inning scoreless once again. 

Graduate student RHP Josh Stewart was called to hopefully close out the Aggie pitching for the night. A string of coordination got senior SS Davis Baker to third, but a groundout from junior 1B Nick Spaventa put away the third out before Baker crossed home. 

With three outs to complete a game’s worth of work, the Aggies started to look for any mistake from the glove of Shurtleff to forgo extra innings.

A full-count walk to junior catcher Bear Harrison was the first mistake, and a single thanks to Kellner over the glove of senior center fielder Ryan Taylor was the second. A ball right out of Taylor’s glove’s reach ended the Aggies’ drought as sophomore pinch runner Sawyer Farr came across home plate for the walk-off victory. 

“It’s a team game,” Earley said. “And when it mattered, our guy drew a walk, our guy got the bunt down, our guy got the hit.”

Now sitting at a 5-0 record, the Aggies continue their weekend series against the Quakers on Saturday, Feb. 21, as first pitch is set for 2 p.m. at Olsen Field.