Game #1: Texas A&M 15, Tennessee Tech 6
Records: Texas A&M (1-0, 0-0), Tennessee Tech (0-1, 0-0)
WP: Shane Sdao (1-0)
LP: Jaxson Pease (0-1)
Box Score
Remember the first day of grade school?
Anxiety. Excitement. Positive takeaways.
Yet still plenty of work to do.
Class was back in session for head man Michael Earley as his 25th-ranked Aggies opened the year with a 15-6 win over Tennessee Tech in front of 7,213 at Blue Bell Park on Friday night.
“Offensively, we kept playing the whole game, played all nine innings, and that game was closer than the score looks,” Earley said postgame. “For the most part, I thought we played really good baseball. It got away at the end, but it was a really good game.”
Texas A&M’s offense was loud but not entirely rambunctious, accumulating 18 hits while leaving 13 on base.
The loudest of them all was Caden Sorrell, who crushed a pair of Opening Day home runs and finished 3-for-6 with five RBIs. His biggest swing — a three-run blast in the seventh that swelled the lead to 10-4 — helped the Aggies run away with a comfortable victory.
“I don’t really like to ride the highs too much or the lows too much,” Sorrell said of his fourth multi-homer game. “Moving forward, like tomorrow, it’s a new day. Wake up at 6:30, get here at 7:30 for team meal, and, you know, go play a baseball game.”
Meanwhile, heralded transfer addition Chris Hacopian pieced together three singles in his Aggie debut.
Also enjoying multi-hit nights were returning pupil Terrence Kiel II (3-for-6) as well as new kids Wesley Jordan (2-for-3), Jake Duer (2-for-4), Nico Partida (2-for-4) and Boston Kellner (2-for-3).
As true freshmen, Partida hit a three-run blast in the eighth while Kellner doubled twice out of the nine spot.
“Awesome. Awesome, man. Awesome,” Earley said of the youngsters. “They’re good players. There’s only one way to get your feet wet in front of a crowd like that, and that’s just to do it. I was super proud of them.”
Line drive after line drive, A&M tallied 10 extra-base hits and finally broke the Tennessee Tech bullpen in the late innings.
“I was really proud of this offense,” Sorrell said. “What I love about this offense, it’s very relentless. One through nine, you know if you don’t get the job done by chance, you know that the guy behind you is going to get it done for you.”
The Aggies led from the first inning on, but the Golden Eagles threatened to deliver a dreaded first-day pop quiz as Shane Sdao clung to a 5-4 lead entering the sixth.
With two on and one out in the frame, left-handed reliever Ethan Darden entered and promptly induced a 5-4-3 double play to skirt trouble.
From there, A&M rattled off seven unanswered, including a five-run seventh that saw 11 Aggies bat.
Darden, a Clemson transfer, authored 1.2 innings of hitless relief behind Sdao, who allowed four earned in 5.1 frames while throwing 83 pitches in his return from Tommy John surgery.
“I kind of felt like I was back to my normal self, and it was really surreal being out there in front of the 12th Man again,” Sdao said. “I haven’t thrown that many pitches, I don’t think, at all in my college career, so it’s great to go that deep in a game.”
Sdao’s night was somewhat up-and-down, which was to be expected in his first start in 614 days.
Weak contact and a third-inning, three-run home run from Owen Lee accounted for much of the damage against the southpaw starter. Jorsixt Jimenez added a two-run shot off Cole Hubert in the eighth that cut A&M’s advantage to 12-6.
Still, much like the first day of classes, the familiar face made the 12th Man smile.
“I had goosebumps all the way up until first pitch,” Sdao admitted. “It’s pretty special, and it was a great crowd tonight. I’m very happy I got to be out there and experience it.
“Me being out there is just a statement of how hard I’ve worked and how much I’ve gone through to be in this situation.”
All in all, A&M enjoyed an easy first day.
However, now that the syllabi have been passed out, the real coursework can commence.
There are more questions to answer, and in time, we’ll learn what 2026 has in store together.
The bell rings next on Saturday at 11 a.m. Don’t be tardy.
