Texas A&M manages to escape feisty Northwestern State, 7-6

GAME #13: Texas A&M 7, Northwestern State 6
RECORDS: Texas A&M 12-1, Northwestern State 6-6
WP: Brigham Hill (2-0)
LP: Nathan Aultman (1-1)
SAVE: Ryan Hendrix (3)
BOX SCORE

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Tuesday games for top-10 teams in college baseball are usually seen as a chance to get some bench players some playing time and as an easy win to start the week. Apparently that's not what you're asking for when you schedule the Northwestern State Demons.

After going up by five runs in the fifth inning, it looked like Texas A&M would cruise to the finish line, but the Demons had other ideas. They scored four runs in the final three innings, forcing A&M to hold on for an unexpectedly pressure-packed 7-6 victory.

It started wonderfully for the Aggies. Facing a pitcher with a 7.36 ERA, Texas A&M scored two runs in the first inning on three hits, including a two-RBI single by Hunter Melton.

Northwestern State answered the bell quickly and tagged Aggie starter Brigham Hill for one run in each of the next two innings to tie it up. Hill was under pressure for all five innings of his outing, giving up 7 hits to go along with the game-tying runs.

As all elite teams are supposed to do, Texas A&M punched back after getting knocked down and used two different strategies to do it. In the fourth, the Aggies combined a sac bunt and two singles to produce two more runs and take the lead.

The fifth was a different story.

As the heart of the Aggie line-up came to the plate, A&M switched from small ball to the long ball. With one run already in the bank in the frame, Nick Banks hit a two-run shot over the right field fence to put the Aggies up by five.

"He didn't miss a beat (after sitting out 5 games)", head coach Rob Childress said of Banks. "To get him back out there and get him feeling good and feeling one-hundred percent has been really beneficial to our line-up. It makes it that much longer."

Up 7-2, Texas A&M appeared to be running away with another mid-week blowout, but everything changed in the seventh.

Corbin Martin was electric in the sixth and took the Demons down in order, but couldn't find his groove in the next inning. In a span of six hitters, Martin issued one walk and gave up 4 hits, surrendering three runs to the Demons.

Andrew Vinson took the mound and got the Ags out of the inning, but had his own troubles in the eighth and gave up another run. Up by only one run, Head Coach Rob Childress called on stalwart closer Ryan Hendrix to finish the job.

Even the hard-throwing right-hander had a hard time against the Demons, giving up 3 walks and throwing 3 wild pitches in his 1.2 innings before striking out his final batter to close the ninth inning.

All told, the finish was much more precarious than the fans would have liked. The Aggies believe that high-pressure games like this will aid them during the upcoming SEC slate, however.

"When we get into conference play, we're going to be dealing with games like that maybe up to once or twice per week," White said. "It's good to see how we handled ourselves. There are definitely areas we can improve, but that was good."

The Aggies have long to catch their collective breath. They'll face Northwestern State again tomorrow at 3 p.m. at Blue Bell Park.