Texas A&M fails to overcome defensive miscues, falls to Texas, 4-3

For the second year in a row, the Texas A&M and Texas midweek game was decided by one run, but this time the Aggies didn’t have any late-inning heroics in them.

Although freshman Braden Shewmake did everything in his power to try and single-handedly win the game for A&M – he went 3-4 on the day, scored two of the Aggies' three runs, and made three nice defensive plays in the field – it wasn't enough to overcome A&M's miscues.

The Aggies had a chance to jump on the Longhorns early but failed to get a run across through the first three innings, despite the fact that Texas starter Nick Kennedy issued two free passes in the first two innings. 

“He did a great job for them tonight. The moments where he had a chance to buckle, he didn’t. He made pitches when he had to,” said A&M coach Rob Childress of Kennedy’s performance

Kennedy, a former College Station High School standout, left the game after the fifth inning. His final stat line showed 5.0 IP, 1 earned run, 2 hits and 6 strikeouts.

A&M did get on the board in the top of the fourth, however, when freshman Braden Shewmake  got things going for the Aggies. Shewmake doubled to right field and later came around to score on a balk by Kennedy.

Getting the start for A&M was freshman lefty John Doxakis, who started off hot, retiring nine of the first ten batters he faced.

He wasn’t able to make it out of the fourth inning, though, as the A&M defense made repeated mistakes.

After walking the lead-off man, Doxakis was called for his second balk of the game by the first base umpire for not being set.

“I’ve never been called on that type of balk before, so I don’t know if he was just looking for it," said Doxakis of the calls. 

After that, Longhorn first baseman Kacy Clemens proceeded to rip an RBI-single into center field, scoring the runner from the second. Following that Texas left-fielder Austin Todd proceeded to lay down a bunt to try to and move Clemens to third, but Aggie third baseman Jorge Gutierrez fielded the bunt and threw the ball past Joel Davis at first and into right field, allowing Clemens to score.

“We give up a leadoff walk and then started a snowball fight (throwing the ball around). We had four errors on the board but made five. Just didn’t do enough in the end to win,” said Childress.

By the time the fourth inning was over, the Aggies had given up three runs to surrender the lead. Reliever Corbin Martin came on, pitched 2 1/3 innings of relief and gave up one earned run in the fifth. That run came on an error by Davis as a pick-off attempt went off his glove at first and into foul territory beyond the bag, allowing the Longhorn lead-off man Travis Jones to score.

Shewmake got things going for the Aggies again in the eighth after a Logan Foster lead-off walk. He singled through the left side of the infield for his third hit of the day.

“He can do it all. He’s a special player,” added Childress on Shewmake.

Foster came around to score on a bases-loaded walk to pinch-hitter Cam Blake to cut the Longhorn lead to two. Shewmake later scored on a Tim Lichty fielder's choice ground ball to pull within one, 4-3.

But that was where the Aggie rally ended. Nick Choruby got down a safety squeeze bunt that was fielded nicely and fired to home by Clemons to nail Joel Davis at the plate for the second out. Cole Bedford popped out to the third baseman to end the inning.

A scoreless eighth inning from reliever Landon Miner gave A&M a chance to extend the game to the bottom of the ninth. An Austin Homan lead-off walk and a sacrifice bunt by Blake Kopetsky put the tying run on second with one out, but the game ended on back-to-back ground outs to the shortstop by Foster and Shewmake.

“At the end of the night, they fielded the bunts and we didn’t. We didn’t do enough to deserve to win,” said Childress to sum up the night.

The Aggies will now move on to conference play, starting with a weekend series with the Kentucky Wildcats at Olsen Field. First pitch for Friday night is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. A&M ace Brigham Hill will be on the mound.