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Texas A&M Baseball

Around the Horn with Rob Childress ... Big 12 Tournament Edition

May 23, 2012
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TexAgs Road Trip to OKC … presented by Liere Insurance

TexAgs.com's blowout coverage of the Big 12 Tournament is made possible by our good friends at Liere Insurance!

I want to remind you that Liere Insurance — an Aggie owned and operated company and the foremost independent insurance company in and around Aggieland — is giving away a Disney dream vacation for four to Walt Disney World Resort in beautiful Orlando, Florida! This vacation of a lifetime is for a seven-day, six-night stay, airfare and passes to the Disney theme parks … valued at $6,000!

For more information on becoming eligible for this amazing contest, simply take a moment and send a quick email to Braxton Sherrill '06 or Bryan Massey ‘02 at ags@myliere.com. They will let you know how to get a quote and, thus, get entered to the drawing. If you prefer to call, you can dial 888-98-LIERE.

In addition, just by sending an e-mail or giving Liere Insurance a call, we will give you a FREE 30-day TexAgs Premium subscription. If you are not a subscriber, you will be able to use it to gain access to all that TexAgs has to offer for 30 days. If you are already a subscriber, you can pass the code onto a friend as a gift from you.

Liere Insurance is here to save you hundreds of dollars on your home and/or auto insurance. Take a quick moment to reach out to them and let them prove it to you!

*Note: No purchase necessary … certain restrictions apply … Disney Sweepstakes only available to Texas residents!



Notes from "Around the Horn" with Rob Childress

* The team always looks forward to playing in the Big 12 Tournament. The tournament is back to two separate four team brackets which is exactly how it will be next week in the NCAA Tournament, double elimination. He feels that A&M’s bracket this week will be harder than their bracket in the regional round of the NCAA’s. A&M will open with Kansas who got hot late and found their way into the tournament. From a defensive standpoint, A&M will have to execute and throw strikes to be successful. Daniel Mengden will be on the mound for game one and should get A&M off to a great start. By starting Mengden, it allows the regular weekend starter to get back on their full rest schedule.

* Mengden had three great starts for A&M leading up to the postseason and got some good use out of the pen last Saturday. Between the home run and the save, he couldn’t have done much better on the day.

* He’s going to miss the Big 12 Tournament because he’s grown up in this league the past 15 years. He’s made great friends, formed some great relationships and played some great baseball during his time in the Big 12 Tournament. The people in Oklahoma City run such a great tournament, and if the College World Series were to ever move from Omaha, OKC should be the first place they look. The ballpark is great and the bus is hardly needed once you get to the hotel because everything is in such close proximity to each other.

* If there is a trophy and a ring involved in any tournament, he wants to win it and that’s the way he expects his players to go about it as well. This is a business trip for the team and their last opportunity to make some noise in Bricktown which is why he hopes to bring that trophy home on Sunday evening.

* He told the team three weeks ago that it was going to be hard to even be considered for a top eight national seed in the NCAA Tournament and that their goal needed to be making sure to get a regional at home. The team accepts any challenge put forth to them, and after playing really well the past few weeks they have put themselves in a position to possibly get one of those national seeds. This week, the team needs to go take care of business and make it really hard on the committee to not give them one of the eight coveted seeds.

* The team’s goal is to win each individual day, and if a day down the road has them playing the University of Texas, they will deal with that then. He really doesn’t care who the team faces after the first game and no matter whom it ends up being, A&M will go about their business as usual.

* A&M played really well this past weekend. Thursday started off with as good of a pitching matchup as you could ask for at the college level and after falling down early, A&M was able to pick things up and win the game in extras. He was really proud of the way the team fought and didn’t give up after getting down early to a great pitcher.

* On Friday, he expected Oklahoma State to go away if they could attack early, but after getting out to a 6-0 lead, the Cowboys were able to find a way to get back into the game. Tyler Naquin had a big RBI triple in the eighth inning and just like that, A&M had the series locked up before game three even started.

* On Saturday, the team seemed to sleepwalk through the first five or six innings and he had to go to the bullpen in the third because Rafael Pineda wasn’t throwing too many strikes. Corey Ray came in and gave the team a big stop, and then Parker Ray came in and did a good job as well. With one out in the bottom of the eighth, Coach Sawyers asked him his opinion of letting Mengden have an at-bat if they got a couple of runners on ahead of him. After the team made the third out, Coach Seely got on the walkie-talkie and told him to come down for an at-bat. After a couple of runners get on base, he pinch-hit Mengden for Scott Arthur and the rest is history. In the bottom of the ninth, Mengden was a little excited and walked a guy and hit a guy to put two on base. Thankfully, OSU wasn’t able to get a bunt down and he struck out the side to end the game.

* There is no doubt that if Mengden can swing the bat like he did on Saturday that he could see more at-bats in his future. Out of necessity this year, the team asked him to lean more to the pitching side of things and he took that graciously. He’s such a good teammate and understands what the team is trying to do as a group. They have been limited in the amounts of opportunities the younger guys have had at the DH spot because of Juengel spending so much time in that place this year. Hopefully Mikey Reynolds will be back this week and that spot will close back up with Juengel back in it.

* The team is always in the game and will always have a shot to make a run at some point. They just need to continue to play hard and continue to play with a chip on their shoulder. Their whole goal right now is to make it through this four-team tournament and come home with that trophy on Sunday night.
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Around the Horn with Rob Childress ... Big 12 Tournament Edition

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Around the Horn with Rob Childress ... Big 12 Tournament Edition
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TexAgs Road Trip to OKC … presented by Liere Insurance

TexAgs.com's blowout coverage of the Big 12 Tournament is made possible by our good friends at Liere Insurance!

I want to remind you that Liere Insurance — an Aggie owned and operated company and the foremost independent insurance company in and around Aggieland — is giving away a Disney dream vacation for four to Walt Disney World Resort in beautiful Orlando, Florida! This vacation of a lifetime is for a seven-day, six-night stay, airfare and passes to the Disney theme parks … valued at $6,000!

For more information on becoming eligible for this amazing contest, simply take a moment and send a quick email to Braxton Sherrill '06 or Bryan Massey ‘02 at ags@myliere.com. They will let you know how to get a quote and, thus, get entered to the drawing. If you prefer to call, you can dial 888-98-LIERE.

In addition, just by sending an e-mail or giving Liere Insurance a call, we will give you a FREE 30-day TexAgs Premium subscription. If you are not a subscriber, you will be able to use it to gain access to all that TexAgs has to offer for 30 days. If you are already a subscriber, you can pass the code onto a friend as a gift from you.

Liere Insurance is here to save you hundreds of dollars on your home and/or auto insurance. Take a quick moment to reach out to them and let them prove it to you!

*Note: No purchase necessary … certain restrictions apply … Disney Sweepstakes only available to Texas residents!
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