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Late rally pushes Texas to win in series opener

By LARRY BOWEN
Eagle Staff Writer

The Texas A&M baseball team started with small ball and played some long ball, but then the Aggies went into a stall that cost them the opener of their Big 12 series against Texas.

A&M built a three-run lead three innings into the game, but the Longhorns scored two runs in the seventh and two in the ninth to stun A&M 6-4 before an overflow crowd of 7,224 at Olsen Field on Friday night.

Fifth-ranked Texas improved to 40-14 overall and 19-6 in the conference, clinching at least a share of the Big 12 regular-season championship. Two games ahead of Missouri, the Longhorns can win the title outright by taking one more game in the series, which will shift to Austin for games at 6:05 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday.

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Buy this photo Eagle Photo/Gabriel Chmielewski Texas outfielder Jordan Danks dives for a line drive in the third inning of Texas' 6-4 win over Texas A&M on Friday. The teams will play in Austin at 6:05 p.m. Saturday.

The ninth-ranked Aggies dropped to 41-13 and 13-11 by losing their last home game of the regular season.

A&M's usual speed game and a home run by Luke Anders produced a 4-1 lead that lasted until the sixth inning, but the Longhorns dominated the final four innings while the Aggie offense went quiet.

"We just scrapped and scraped and fought, and the momentum finally changed in the sixth inning," Texas coach Augie Garrido said. "We kept scrapping, and when you do that the intangibles have a way of finding their way to your side."

Garrido praised starting pitcher James Russell for overcoming a shaky start to shut down the Aggies through the middle innings.

A&M coach Rob Childress bemoaned how his team missed chances to pad the lead. Most troubling was the fourth inning, when the Aggies got runners to second and third with one out but failed to score, and the sixth when A&M wasted a leadoff double.

"It was a game of opportunities," Childress said. "Texas made the most of theirs, and we didn't make the most of ours. Out of those two opportunities [in the fourth and sixth], based on what we've done all year, you've got to think we score at least one run [in each inning]. If we do that, it's 6-1 and it's a different game."

A&M's failure to stretch the lead proved painful when UT broke a 4-4 tie in the ninth, scoring two runs on an infield single, three walks, an error and a sacrifice fly. Nick Peoples started the rally with his third hit of the night, then stole second and went to third on a throwing error. A wild pitch scored Peoples and moved Travis Tucker, who reached on a walk, to third base, allowing him to score on a sacrifice fly by Chance Wheeless.

The Aggies got the potential tying run to the plate in the bottom of the ninth after a two-out walk to Blake Stouffer. However, Texas relief ace Randy Boone (4-6) ended the game by striking out Anders.

Not long after the pregame ceremony honoring the Aggie seniors, UT's Kyle Russell briefly interrupted the festivities with a long homer that nearly landed on the railroad tracks beyond the right-field wall. Russell leads the nation with 27 home runs.

The Aggies took the lead in the bottom of the first by scoring two runs on three hits which, if placed end-to-end, wouldn't have been much longer than Russell's homer. Brandon Hicks singled, stole second and scored when Ben Feltner poked a single up the middle. The speedy Feltner raced to second on the throw home, swiped third base standing up, and scored when Anders slapped a single past the drawn-in shortstop.

Anders made it 4-1 in the third, following Stouffer's two-out double with his 10th home run of the season, an opposite-field shot that cleared the wall in left by a few feet.

A&M pitcher Kyle Nicholson escaped a jam in the second, stranding runners at second and third by striking out the No. 9 hitter, Tucker. Nicholson retired 10 consecutive batters before the Longhorns nibbled at the lead.

UT could have taken a bigger bite, though. Jordan Danks singled and scored on Bradley Suttle's one-out double, but a good relay from center fielder Kyle Colligan to shortstop Hicks nailed a second runner at the plate to keep it 4-2.

The Horns pulled even in the seventh, when Peoples singled with one out and scored on a double by Chais Fuller that knocked Nicholson out of the game. Reliever Kirkland Rivers struck out the first batter he faced, but Danks singled to drive in the tying run.

Kyle Thebeau pitched the ninth and took the loss, dropping to 2-5.

NOTES - Texas A&M volunteer assistant coach Will Bolt has been named the head coach at Texarkana College. Bolt will continue to serve his current role on the Texas A&M baseball staff until the season is completed....Blake Stouffer was named one of 16 semifinalists for the Dick Howser Trophy, given annually to the nation's top collegiate baseball player.