KINGSVILLE, Texas - The Texas A&M-Kingsville baseball program won out in a messy game two of the Lone Star Conference series matchup with Eastern New Mexico on Friday at Nolan Ryan Field by a score of 13-5 in a game that featured nine combined errors from both sides.
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The Javelinas (17-9, 16-9 LSC) allowed only one earned run from the Greyhounds (8-29, 7-27 LSC) while 10 of the 13 runs plated by the hosts were credited as unearned.
A sacrifice fly from Cole Luedeking in the opening frame brought in the first run of the contest as Camden Matthews crossed home for the Hounds. The Hogs came right back in the bottom half of the stanza when redshirt senior Kohl Ullman (Houston, Texas) swiped third on a double steal with classmate Seth Spinn (Holland, Texas) and scored on an errant throw down from Andres Quintana.
Spinn later scored on a sacrifice fly from junior Giancarlo Servin (Edinburg, Texas) for a 2-1 TAMUK lead heading into the second.
ENMU regained the lead in the third after Cooper Hamilton dropped a single to center that plated Jude Perea to tie the game. A follow-up single from Luedeking later in the inning brought Hamilton home for the 3-2 advantage favoring the visitors.
The next 11 runs for the hosts all came in the middle innings of the game, starting with two in the fourth after freshman Garrett Thompson (New Braunfels, Texas) drew a bases-loaded walk for the first, while senior Austin De Leon (Frisco, Texas) skied a sacrifice fly to left for the second.
The Blue and Gold tallied three more in the fifth after Spinn pasted a single to center that scored Ullman, followed by a single to right from Servin to cap freshman Damian Rodriguez (McAllen, Texas), while a wild pitch gave Spinn enough room to score later on for a 7-3 cushion.
The rally that all but secured the game for the Hogs came in the sixth with Damian Rodriguez igniting the run on a double down the left-field line to score redshirt sophomore Matthew Stary (Houston, Texas). A bases-loaded walk issued to Servin brought in the second run while a single to center from redshirt junior Will Arnold (Magnolia, Texas) added the third.
A two-run liner from De Leon out to right pushed the next two runs across, while a bounding-ball double into left-center from redshirt junior Hayden Fails (Sweeny, Texas) set the lead at double digits with a 13-3 advantage after six.
The visitors were able to stave off the run-rule in the top half of seventh with a pair of runs from Braeton Matthews, but couldn't make a dent the rest of the way as the Javelinas closed out the game with two scoreless innings.
Junior John Mike Rodriguez (Corpus Christi, Texas) started on the hill and went three innings with three strikeouts to only one earned run allowed. He was replaced by classmate Amado Almanzar (Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic) ahead of the fourth as the transfer from UTRGV and Ranger College picked up his third win with three scoreless innings and six strikeouts along with no hits and no runs allowed.
Three different Javelinas tabbed multiple hits on the evening, with Spinn, Thompson and De Leon all finishing with two. Servin and De Leon also added three RBI while Spinn finished with four runs scored ahead of three runs from Ullman.
The series finale is set for 1 p.m. CT on Saturday, May 1, as the Hogs will honor their 2021 Senior Class ahead of first pitch.
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