Texas A&M second baseman Braden Shewmake came into this weekend ranked second and seventh in the SEC for hits and batting average, respectively.
The freshman moved up the ranks with three hits and a home run on Tennessee en route to a 2-1 A&M victory in the series opener.
It was George Janca who ultimately won the Friday afternoon contest, though. After Tennessee loaded the bases with one out, Janca blasted a single over the heads of two outfielders in left center.
“I had seen him three times and I knew what pitches he threw,” Janca said of UT’s Hunter Martin. “It helps seeing him three times before.”
Scoring the game-winning run was Shewmake, who led off the bottom of the ninth with a single up the middle. After Shewmake’s single, Hunter Coleman reached first after Tennessee’s pitcher unsuccessfully dove for his bunt.
“Sometimes the smallest mistakes are magnified,” A&M head coach Rob Childress said about Martin’s dive attempt. “But if you are making aggressive mistakes, you can’t fault anybody for that.”
A&M elected to bunt again, advancing Coleman and Shewmake to second and third. Martin loaded the bases with an intentional walk to Blake Kopetsky, setting up the walk-off from Janca.
For the most part, Shewmake was the only Aggie who found success on Hunter Martin, who pitched the entire game for Tennessee. The second baseman logged three of A&M’s six hits on the day.
“[Shewmake] is a great player and we are lucky to have him in our program,” Childress said. “He was certainly a big difference late.”
The Aggies (27-12, 9-7 SEC) weren’t finding any luck offensively through the first six innings. Martin allowed just one hit and two walks until Shewmake answered the call with a homer to right in the seventh. Following his hot start, Martin allowed six hits and two runs in the final three innings.
“He was mixing speeds and throwing two, sometimes three pitches all for strikes,” Shewmake said. “When you can throw multiple pitches for strikes and keep us off balance, it is tough to hit.”
A&M’s Brigham Hill answered with a gem of his own, throwing seven scoreless innings. Hill only allowed five hits and one walk, dealing six strikeouts on 109 total pitches in the process.
“Our defense played incredible and I’ve got to give all the credit to Cole Bedford,” Hill said about his catcher, who hosed a base runner stealing for second in the seventh. “He saved me in some big situations.”
The Volunteers (19-16, 4-12 SEC) certainly had their fair share of opportunities, however. They stranded at least one runner in scoring position in four different innings: the second, fourth, sixth and eighth.
Tennessee eventually scored a run in the eighth to tie it at 1-1. With two outs, Jordan Rodgers singled home Justin Ammons from third. The RBI single came against Mitchell Kilkenny, who pitched the final two innings and gave up merely two hits.
After starting SEC play 0-5 and dropping its first two series, A&M has won nine of its last eleven conference games. A collective performance from Shewmake, Hill, Janca and Bedford inches the Aggies one step closer from winning their fourth consecutive series.