Texas A&M roars back from 5-0 deficit to beat Lamar in College Station Regional opener
Published:
Texas A&M worked all season to get a home regional, but the No. 12 overall seed wasn’t doing anything to make the crowd in College Station cheer on Friday.
The Aggies trailed a Lamar team with nothing to lose by a 5-0 score in the top of the fourth, but they didn’t let that deficit do them in during their College Station Regional opener. Instead of being banished to an elimination game on Saturday, Texas A&M picked itself up from the canvas with a late-inning scoring barrage that carried it to a 7-5 victory.
Texas A&M (40-14) remained in good shape to get out of its home regional and into one of next week’s super regionals. The pursuit of that will continue on Saturday against the winner of Friday’s other College Station Regional game between USC and Texas State. The Aggies will face that undetermined opponent at 9 p.m. ET on Saturday.
They’re just relieved to not be in a dreaded elimination game, after Lamar (34-26) stunned Texas A&M with a run in the first inning, 2 in the third and 2 more in the fourth. After an uneven performance by left-hander Shane Sdao, who allowed 6 hits and 3 earned runs while only recording 9 outs, right-hander Gavin Lyons provided some length out of the bullpen. Lyons allowed just 1 earned run in 4 innings of work, giving up 2 hits, walking none and striking out 4 to allow the Aggies’ bats a chance to rally.
And rally they did, with 3 runs in the fifth, 2 more in the seventh to tie the game at 5-5 and then 2 more during the game-winning rally in the eighth. Righty Clayton Freshcorn nailed the game down in the ninth after the offensive heroics, capping his 2 innings of stellar work that got the Aggies to the finish line on Friday against the stubborn Cardinals.
A solo home run by Gavin Grahovac and a 2-run shot from Chris Hacopian got Texas A&M off the mat in the fifth and in position for the late rally. The Aggies kept coming in the seventh, with a bases-loaded walk and a sacrifice fly tying the game at 5-5 and setting the stage for those game-winning runs in the eighth.
An error and a sacrifice fly by Hacopian pushed Texas A&M into the lead for the first time all day, and suddenly the Aggies were 3 outs away from restoring order to a game that looked like it had gotten away from them.
Texas A&M survived step 1 of its hopeful journey to Omaha on Friday, but the Aggies still have a long way to go to get there. Here is what the Kalshi market is currently saying about their chances to join college baseball’s elite at the College World Series next month:
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
