Texas A&M escapes upset in 13-inning showdown with HBU, 3-2

GAME #9: Texas A&M 3, Houston Baptist 2
RECORDS: Texas A&M 8-1, Houston Baptist 5-4
WP: Cason Sherrod (1-0)
LP: Matt Harding (1-1)
BOX SCORE


Last year's Aggie baseball team had an incredible knack for making big plays in big moments. That attribute played a key role in Texas A&M's postseason run and helped forge one of the most memorable seasons in recent memory for the program.

Entering the 2016 season, many raised questions concerning how this year's team would perform in the clutch. For Tuesday night, at least, those questions were answered.

Down a run in the bottom of the thirteenth inning to Houston Baptist, Hunter Melton tripled into right field to drive in the game-tying run and give the Aggies hope. A few batters later, Nick Choruby walked in another run, giving Texas A&M another mid-week win, 3-2.

The Aggie bats were slow out of the gate, to say the least. Producing only one run through the first seven innings, Texas A&M struggled to keep runners on base. Aggie hitters continually hit into double plays, got caught stealing and we're picked off by Husky pitchers throughout the first nine innings.

Thankfully for the Aggie bats, the pitching staff was more than up to the challenge of keeping the Huskies at bay.

Starter Brigham Hill and a host of arms out of the Aggie bullpen allowed just 1 run on 8 hits through 9 innings, guiding the Aggies to a 1-1 tie with the Huskies as the game went to extras.

The A&M bullpen was almost flawless until the top of the thirteenth inning when freshman Mitchell Kilkenny surrendered three singles and 1 run to Houston Baptist hitters. After Cason Sherrod punched out the last Husky batter, the Aggies desperately needed to score.

In the bottom half of the inning, Boomer White singled with one out, giving the Aggies a base runner and the 12th Man some energy. Hunter Melton was up next, and the big man did what seniors are supposed to do.

He kept the Aggies in the game.

Blasting a triple into the corner in right field, Melton tied the game with one swing of the bat, wresting all the momentum from the Huskies and putting it in the Aggie dugout.

"(It was) far and away the biggest hit of the night," head coach Rob Childress said of Melton's triple. "Balls weren't going very far with the way the wind was going. Hunter did a great job with two strikes, elevating the ball the other way."

It was all A&M from there as Houston Baptist loaded the bases with two intentional walks and brought Nick Choruby to the plate.

While a storybook ending would have had Choruby smashing a home run over the center field fence, the junior sat patiently in the batter's box for the entirety of his at-bat, eventually earning a walk and an RBI as the winning run came home.

"I went up there with an aggressive mindset, but once I was ahead in the count, I got up on the plate and put a little pressure on (the pitcher)," Choruby said.

While the pressure proved to be a little too much for the Huskies, the 2016 version of A&M baseball seems to be taking a page out of last year's book. There's a long way to go this season, but maybe they can recapture some of 2015's magic as the rest of the year plays out.

They certainly did on Tuesday.

Texas A&M will stay home this weekend to take on Yale in a three-game series. The first game will take place on Friday at 6:30.