COLLEGE STATION, Texas – The No. 5 Texas A&M Aggies pummeled the Georgia Bulldogs, 15-1, Saturday on Olsen Field at Blue Bell Park with the aid of five-homer effort.
The season-high home run output started in consecutive at-bats in the fifth inning. Boomer White hit his first homer since his opening at-bat of the season to leadoff. Then, on Georgia’s second pitch of the inning Hunter Melton bounced one off the top of the right field wall and over the fence. Ryne Birk made it back-to-back-to-back solo shots with his fourth of the season, a rocket to leftfield.
In the following inning, Melton again sent one out, this time to left, his seventh dinger on the year, giving him his second-multi homer game on the season. Nick Banks wasn’t going to be left out of the long ball party as he mashed his own in the eighth.
The blasts mark the first-ever five-homer game for A&M in SEC play and the most in any game since they hit the nickel against Sam Houston State on March 31, 2015.
Jace Vines (5-0) did his part keeping the Bulldogs in check all afternoon. He maintained his perfect record, working a career-high 8.0 innings and giving up just one run with seven strikeouts. He worked around eight hits and a walk on the afternoon. It was the longest outing by an Aggie all season.
Texas A&M’s (24-7, 6-5 SEC) all-upperclassman lineup was a nightmare against Georgia starter Connor Jones (4-2). It started in the first after J.B. Moss and Banks reached and found themselves in scoring position. White sent Moss home on a single and a Melton RBI groundout put the lead at 2-0. The offense kept on churning pushing another run across on a RBI single from Austin Homan.
In the third, Banks got it started with his second walk of early game. White followed it up with a gapper giving Banks just enough time to making home, narrowly avoiding the tag at the plate.
The home team put together a two rally to pad their lead in the fourth. Homan boarded with a single followed by Moss reaching on an error. A couple wild pitches and a balk cleared the bases of Aggies and put the score at 5-0.
Georgia (17-15, 4-7 SEC) managed their first run of the weekend in the fifth. Vines was able to limit the damage, ending the inning with a double play, one of three recorded by the Aggie defense on the game.
Along with the homers, the Aggies sprinkled in a few extra runs; four in the fifth, a couple in the sixth, and four in the eighth. On the game, the Aggies put up a crooked number in four separate innings, a feat that their opponents haven’t achieved once at Blue Bell since March 15.
Corbin Martin was brought on to get the final three outs. He surrendered one hit before the game ending double play that secured the third SEC series victory in four tries. The 14-run margin was the largest ever in SEC play for A&M and they haven’t posted a larger conference win since a 25-6 beat down of then No. 13 Texas in 1995.
White had an RBI in three different plate appearances and raised his season average to an incredible .421 and he’s now hitting over .500 in SEC play. He came a few inches away from a mutli-homer game with a deep fly in the eighth. Homan had a career outing going 3-for-4 with two RBI.
Melton added to his team RBI lead with four driven in. He now has 36 on the season.
Georgia and A&M will wrap up the series with a 1:04 start on Sunday. Kyle Simonds will get the ball looking for the Aggie’s first SEC sweep on the year.
TEXAS A&M QUOTES
HEAD COACH ROB CHILDRESS
Opening statement…
“It was kind of the same recipe as yesterday. We got a great performance on the mound out of Jace [Vines]. He attacked the strike zone, induced contact early, and it was extremely efficient. We played amazing defense behind him as well. I think we turned three double plays and made them earn everything that they got. Offensively I felt like we pressured them and from the word ‘go’ again today.”
On today being one of the Aggies better games…
“This was maybe one of our most complete game of the year - top to bottom. I’m very proud of our guys and how we’ve played since we have been back at home.”
On back-to-back-to-back home runs…
“I don’t know if I have ever seen that during my time here. Three home runs on four pitches, that’s not going to happen very often.”
TEXAS A&M JUNIOR BOOMER WHITE
On the offense being fired up…
“It’s nice. It’s going to take that down the stretch for the team’s that we are facing every game. We are going to need our offensive like we did today. We are going to need Jace [Vines]...like he did today.”
