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Updated 7:24 AM on Sunday, May 27, 2007

Ags to face Baylor in final

By RICHARD CROOME
Eagle Staff Writer

OKLAHOMA CITY - Texas' Travis Tucker dove forward to snag Jake Opitz's soft liner and Aggie and Longhorn fans stood and cheered as one.

A little less than four hours after Texas A&M took care of business with a convincing 7-2 win over Kansas State, rival Texas defeated Nebraska 5-4, sending the Aggies into the Big 12 Tournament championship game at 1 p.m. Sunday at the Bricktown Ballpark. A&M will play Baylor, who beat Oklahoma 7-6 Saturday night.

With the ball secured in Tucker's glove, A&M coach Rob Childress breathed a sigh of relief, relief pitcher Matt Ueckert, sitting in the front row of the left-field bleachers, pumped his fist in the air and the coaches' wives gave each other hugs in celebrating the Aggies' first appearance in the final since 2001.

"Yeah, it was," Childress said when asked if it was more nerve-wracking watching the second game than coaching his own team. "No doubt about it, that was a great game to sit and watch and with the implications it had, even more so."

A&M and Texas each went 2-1 in Pool A. The Aggies advanced on the strength of their 7-3 victory over the Longhorns on Thursday.

"We're playing for a ring tomorrow, and that's why we play," Childress said. "We've got a chance to win a championship and they don't come along very often, so to have that opportunity for this group of kids is special."

The Aggies (43-16) became interested bystanders in the Texas-Nebraska game after decisively eliminating the Wildcats (34-24) with timely hitting, aggressive baserunning, big pitches at key moments and defense.

The Aggies took advantage of getting their leadoff hitter on in each of the first three innings in taking a 4-1 lead Saturday.

Brian Ruggiano set the tone by stretching a single into a double in the Aggies' first at-bat.

Ruggiano was sacrificed over by Ben Feltner and scored on Blake Stouffer's groundout. Stouffer increased his RBI total to 74 with a sacrifice fly to score Feltner in the third inning.

Feltner walked, stole second to tie the Aggie team record for stolen bases in a season at 133, then broke the mark by swiping third.

The Aggies stole six base in all to extend their total on the season to 137.

"[Kansas State starter Chase Bayuk] was easy to steal off of," said Feltner, who leads A&M with 34 steals. "I guess [assistant coach Matt] Deggs knew that and we took advantage of it."

In the second, Luke Anders was hit by a pitch and scored on Kyle Colligan's triple, which hit high off the right-field wall. The Aggies continued to pressure the Wildcats when Parker Dalton beat out a squeeze bunt that scored Colligan.

Kansas State's first run came on a home run by Rob Vaughn, but the Wildcats were left frustrated in each of the first two innings after leaving the bases loaded while Aggie starter David Newmann struggled to find the strike zone.

"I went out there [and told him] you have 100 [pitches] in your gun. You can spend them in the first two innings or you can spend them over the course of five or six innings," Childress said. "It's like a little kid going to Chuck E. Cheese, you've got 100 tokens, you can spend them however you want to spend them. You can spend them early and go home or you can kind of pace yourself and stay there all day."

Newmann took his time, lasting five innings after throwing 64 pitches in the first two innings.

"He definitely didn't have his best stuff today, like he did the last three or four outings," Aggie catcher Craig Stinson said. "But he definitely helped us out by going five innings."

Newmann ended up throwing 111 pitches in picking up his 10th win in 11 decisions.

"I thought he pitched out of a couple tough jams he got himself into and that was kind of the story for the day on mound," Childress said. "We got ourselves into trouble, but we made the pitches when we had to."

Freshman Travis Starling ended the Wildcats' biggest threat to tighten the game during the middle innings. With runners on first and third in the sixth, Starling inherited a 2-0 count on Eddie Vasquez and struck him out. He then induced a ground ball from No. 3 hitter Adam Muenster to protect the Aggies' 5-2 lead.

Starling went the rest of the way for his first save, leaving the bases loaded in the ninth.

The Yoakum High star then proved prophetic, saying he'd was looking for his former high school teammate, Randy Boone, to close out the Cornhuskers so the Aggies would advance.

Boone pitched the final 2 1/3 innings for the Longhorns to gain his Big 12-leading 13th save.

The Aggies went up 5-2 in the fifth on Stinson's first RBI single, and upped it to 6-2 in the seventh on his second RBI single.

Brodie Greene scored the final run on a squeeze bunt by Feltner. KSU got Feltner at first and then threw home to just nip Parker Dalton, who never slowed in trying to score from second.

For the second consecutive game, the Aggies played flawlessly in the field.

"We have played better defense the last two or three weeks," Childress said. "Obviously you didn't see that in the Texas series because both errors made cost us games but we've been more consistent and it starts with [shortstop] Brandon Hicks."

On Sunday, during the championship game, the sites for the regionals will be announced.

The No. 11 Aggies said they validated their case for hosting a regional.

"We've done everything we can do to host a regional," Childress said. "We are top 10 in RPI, we've won on the weekend against good teams, we've won in the middle of the week every time except two times and if that's not good enough to host a regional I don't know what is.

"We deserve to be hosting," Childress said. "I'm not asking for anybody to give that to us, we've earned it."

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NOTES - Craig Stinson has a seven-game hit streak and has multiple hits in nine of his last 11 games. ... Scott Migl, who is 6-3 with a 3.61 ERA, will start for the Aggies in the final ... A&M lost to Texas Tech in the 1998 championship game and Nebraska in 2001. ... Oklahoma State had a less than stellar showing at the tournament, losing all three, but left-fielder Ty Wright extended his hitting streak to 34 games.