KINGSVILLE, Texas - Redshirt senior
Pablo Hernandez (Havana, Cuba) provided the final say for the Texas A&M-Kingsville baseball program in spectacular fashion as he walked off No. 5/3 West Texas A&M on Sunday at Nolan Ryan Field with a 13th-inning grand slam to secure the Lone Star Conference opening series.
"It was a total team effort and a total team buy-in right there," said head coach
Jason Gonzales. "It took everybody in that game and that's the way we try to build this team, everybody needs to contribute at some point in time.
"I was extremely proud of the pitching staff giving our hitters a chance for 13 innings, and at some point in time we knew somebody was going to pop them and we just couldn't break. The guys got into the fight and they never got out of it."
The Javelinas (19-9, 3-1 LSC) got nine combined innings of work in relief from three different pitchers, as redshirt senior
Garrett Alexander (Spring, Texas) and classmate
Eric Sandoz (Austin, Texas) bore the brunt of the work to keep the Buffs (22-6, 1-3 LSC) scoreless after the sixth to set up Hernandez's heroics in the 13th.
Alexander threw six innings out of the pen and gave up only two runs on a sixth-inning, two-run home run to Justice Nakagawa, while Sandoz entered in the 11th and took the reins the rest of the way. Sophomore
Tyler Flores (San Antonio, Texas) got the start and went four innings on the mound with four punchouts before coming away with the no-decision.
The Hogs opened the scoring in the bottom of the third when sophomore
Giancarlo Servin (Edinburg, Texas) skied a two-run blast to left for an early lead. WT got a run back in the top of the fourth after a fielder's choice to second bases with the bases loaded brought Tag Baxter home.
Junior
Seth Spinn (Holland, Texas) ran his hitting streak to 16 games with an RBI liner into right center in the fifth to score classmate
Austin De Leon (Frisco, Texas).
The two-run cushion was short lived as the visitors used the long ball from Nagakawa to even the count at 3-3 while both bullpens took over starting in the seventh.
The Buffs opted for All-LSC reliever Dominic Yearego first out of the pen and the righty hurler lasted the remaining six and 1/3 innings in relief of starter Zach Dixon. The Blue and Gold had an opportunity to end the contest in the ninth with bases loaded and two outs before Yearego got the final Javelina swinging.
Meanwhile, Alexander and Sandoz mystified the potent WT lineup and allowed only six batters to reach safely through the final seven innings. Sandoz worked out of a jam in the top of the 12th with the go-ahead run on third with one out, and ended up in a similar situation as he did in the third contest where he opted to intentionally walk Clay Koelzer and got Kyle Kaufman out on a fielder's choice to end the threat.
TAMUK had one final chance to bring the marathon to a close and did so in brilliant fashion as De Leon was the beneficiary of a bad hop with his ground ball through the right side and converted his leadoff at-bat into a double.
The visitors ended up issuing an intentional walk of their own to Spinn in the next at bat before Servin was plunked on the 3-2 pitch from Yearego.
Yearego ended up striking out the next batter but hung a pitch up in the zone for Hernandez on the first look of his time at the plate and the Havana, Cuba, native punished him dearly for it with his first grand slam of 2019 to secure the walk-off win for the Hogs.
Hernandez finished with two hits in the contests, matched by De Leon, Servin and redshirt senior
Manny Loredo (McAllen, Texas)
The Javelinas will take to the road next week for more LSC action as they face Cameron for a four-game set in Lawton, Okla., starting on Friday, March 29.
Stay up-to-date with everything Javelina baseball at JavelinaAthletics.com, follow the program on Twitter @JavelinaBSB and see recent news on Facebook at /JavelinaBSB
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