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Late Surge Leads Aggies to 9-3 Win at Texas State

Posted at 10:56 PM, Mar 28, 2017
and last updated 2017-03-28 23:56:50-04

The Texas A&M Aggies stacked up eight runs in the last four innings to pull away with a 9-3 victory over Texas State Tuesday evening at Bobcat Ballpark.

The Bobcats drew first blood in the bottom of the first inning. With one out, Jonathan Ortega drew a five-pitch walk and moved to second on a wild pitch. Ryan Newman hit a fly ball that the wind took to the warning track over the head of leftfielder Walker Pennington. The resulting double put two runners in scoring position and Theodore Hoffman plated Ortega with a groundout to third base, staking Texas State to a 1-0 lead.

Hoffman hit a two-run home run in the third, his eighth of the year, to inflate the Bobcats lead to 3-0.

Nick Choruby responded with a solo dinger in the top of the fourth inning, with his second home run of the season trimming the Texas State margin to 3-1.

The Aggies (17-9) wrangled the lead away from the Bobcats with a four-run sixth inning. With one out, Choruby drew a five-pitch walk and Braden Shewmake slapped a single to center to put two on, driving Texas State starter Cam Baird from the game. With Anthony Pagano working out of the bullpen, Joel Davis threaded a single through the left side of the infield to plate Choruby. With two outs, Cole Bedford drew a seven-pitch walk to fill the bags with Ags and Blake Kopetsky followed with a five-pitch walk to drive in the tying run.

Texas State (16-9) went back to the bullpen, calling on Brayden Theriot to face Austin Homan and the Aggie shortstop responded by blooping a single into shallow left-center, plating two runs for the 5-3 advantage.

The Maroon and White tacked on two insurance runs in the eighth. With one out, Davis was issued a base on balls and stole second base. A wild pitch on ball four to George Janca put runners on the corners. Bedford grounded out to the right side to knock in Davis and Kopetsky followed with an RBI double down the rightfield line to stretch the lead to 7-3.

The cavalcade of runs continued in the ninth. Coll Stanley notched his first career hit with a double to dead center field and he scored on a single up the middle by Logan Foster. After Foster was caught stealing, Choruby flared a single to left-center and Braden Shewmake knocked him in with a double to rightfield to inflate the cushion to 9-3.

The Aggies had four players log multiple hits on the evening. Choruby led the attack going 3-for-4 with one walk, one home run, three runs and one RBI. Kopetsky batted 2-for-3 with one walk, one double and two RBI. Davis and Shewmake each added two hits.

Texas A&M starter John Doxakis worked 4.0 innings, allowing three runs on three hits and two walks. Cason Sherrod was solid in relief, working 3.0 blank frames, scattering one hit and four walks while striking out two.

Texas A&M returns to action Thursday as the Maroon and White travel to Baton Rouge for a three-game series against the No. 8 LSU Tigers.

TEXAS A&M QUOTES

Head Coach Rob Childress

On the game…

“We certainly didn’t start the way we wanted. But it’s not how you start. It’s how you finish. Doxakis got it back together and got us through the fourth inning. Cason (Sherrod) was fabulous. That’s the best I’ve seen him throw. And we got the offense rolling. That was a big sixth inning and then we got some jug runs in the eighth and ninth. I’m proud of the guys going on the road and getting a win over a really good Texas State team.”

On the offense…

“From the fourth inning to the ninth inning, we were really good. The first time through the lineup, their starter did a really nice job against us. But we started letting the fastball get to us instead of trying to go out and get it. We had some big two-strike at-bats and some big two-out hits.”