CANYON, Texas – The No. 26 Texas A&M-Kingsville baseball program picked up right where it left off at Wilder Park on Thursday in the opening round of the NCAA South Central Regional with a hard-fought 13-10 win over No. 9/7 Colorado Mesa to move on in the winner's bracket.
The Javelinas (38-14) used a seven-run third inning to put the Mavericks (40-15) in an early hole and endured a six-run rally in the sixth to take the win.
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Senior
Dallas Stefano (Cypress, Texas) put the Hogs on the board in the top of the first inning after bouncing a deep fly ball off the turf in left center and over the fence for a ground-rule double to score classmate
Levi Zents (Fort Worth, Texas). TAMUK had runners at second and third with two outs but were unable to convert as CMU's Reagan Todd struck out the final Javelina to end the inning.
Regardless, the Blue and Gold plated seven runs in a dominant third inning rally ignited by junior
Pablo Hernandez's (Havana, Cuba) sacrifice fly to center field to cap redshirt-sophomore
Kohl Ullman (Houston, Texas).
Stefano followed up with a three-run blast to left to clear the bases for a five-run Javelina lead, bringing his two-game, round-trip total to four after sending three out of the park in the LSC Semifinal against Tarleton State. The Cypress, Texas, native finished with his second four-hit day in as many contests for his fourth multi-hit game in a row, tacking on four RBI in the process.
The Hogs got two more after junior
Alex Gonzalez (Corpus Christi, Texas) sent a ground ball to second that was misplayed by the Mavericks, granting senior
Austin Ingraham (Fort Worth, Texas) and freshman
Giancarlo Servin (Edinburg, Texas) access to the plate.
Ullman, who started the inning with a leadoff single through the left side of the diamond, ended the rally with a ground ball to short that was deflected by the pitcher, giving junior
Dylan Hutcheson (Wichita Falls, Texas) enough time to come home for an eight-run TAMUK lead going into the fourth.
The Mavericks got on the board in the bottom of the fourth when Garrett Ball skied a two-run shot to left, but senior
Jarred Taylor (Vidor, Texas) stopped CMU from adding more to its total after working out of a two-on, two-out jam.
Taylor took his fifth win of the season with five innings of work, striking out two in the outing.
The Hogs got the runs back, and then some, in the top of the fifth when Ullman bounced a two-run single through the left side with runners at first and second before senior
Christian Caudle (Klein, Texas) drove a pitch back up the middle to cap Ullman later in the frame.
CMU added another in the bottom half of the fifth when JJ Carr sent a pitch over the left field wall for an 11-3 score favoring the Blue and Gold heading into the sixth.
A hour-long lightning delay punctuated the bottom half of the inning after Colorado Mesa got the first two runners aboard and came back to load up the bases with nobody out once play had resumed. CMU got the first run home in the inning with a free pass to Zach McLeod that forced head coach
Jason Gonzales to go to the pen.
Senior
Lee May Gonzalez (Corpus Christi, Texas) got the bill and ran into a bit of trouble after the Mavs got the second runner home on a sacrifice fly to center from John Ballard that trimmed the lead to 11-5.
Carr brought the next run home on a single into right that was shallow enough for the Hogs to prevent any more from crossing, but the elements at Wilder Park played a role later in the stanza during Dominic DeMarco's at bat with two outs.
The wind around the ballpark whipped into a frenzy as a towering popup in shallow left field got caught in the jet stream and eventually fell to the ground untouched, officially going in as a bases-clearing double to cut TAMUK's cushion to two runs at 11-9.
The lead would remain at two as a fly ball to center field ended CMU's rally.
Hernandez gave the Hogs insurance runs with his two-run jack that cleared the left field scoreboard in the seventh, putting TAMUK ahead of the Mavericks at 13-9 with two and a half innings to go.
Colorado Mesa got its final run in the eighth on an RBI ground out to short from Carr during the home half of the stanza, but the Hogs would head to the bullpen once more and handed the keys to junior
Joshua Valdez (Kyle, Texas) for the ninth.
Valdez worked out of a two-out, two-on jam to cement the line score at 13-10 on the heels of his sixth save of the year to propel the Javelinas into the next round of the winner's bracket.
The Hogs will move on to face No. 21/T30 Colorado School of Mines on Friday, May 18, at 7 p.m. CT at Wilder Park for the second round of NCAA action. The Hogs and the Orediggers faced each other earlier in the year with TAMUK taking a 3-0 win over CSM in the 2018 opener at the Houston Winter Invitational on February 2.
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