CANYON, Texas – The No. 26 Texas A&M-Kingsville baseball program faced another win-or-go-home scenario on Saturday night at Wilder Park in the NCAA South Central Regional against No. 21/T30 Colorado School of Mines, and turned to senior
Kyle Craft (Victoria, Texas) to serve as the lynchpin in a convincing 5-2 win to secure a spot for the Blue and Gold in Sunday's regional final.
Craft went the distance and struck out a season-high 10 en route to his complete-game win, propelling the Javelinas (40-15) to the 4 p.m. CT slot on Sunday, May 20, in the South Central Regional Championship. The Orediggers (37-17) will face Colorado Mesa in the 12 p.m. CT game with the winner moving on to face TAMUK.
The Hogs struck first after junior
Manny Loredo (McAllen, Texas) started the scoring in the top of the second with a bases-loaded free pass that brought junior
Brad Jones (Crandall, Texas) home.
Senior
Levi Zents (Fort Worth, Texas) followed up with a bases-loaded walk of his own to cap junior
Pablo Hernandez (Havana, Cuba) for a 2-0 Javelina lead, while some controversy punctuated the following at bat that resulted in two runs for the Blue and Gold.
Senior
Dallas Stefano (Cypress, Texas) roped a pitch into straightaway center field, allowing junior
Alex Gonzalez (Corpus Christi, Texas) to score, while a close play on Loredo following the relay from the outfield ended in a collision in front of home plate, which eventually went in as a run scored for the Hogs.
It appeared as if the throw from the outfield pulled catcher Mikey Gangwish up the baseline and into the path of Loredo, resulting in the contact, and the end result was both skippers meeting with the plate umpire to discuss the ruling.
Nevertheless, line score favored the Javelinas at 4-0 heading into the third once the dust had settled.
Craft took over from there, allowing only two hits from CSM while recording seven of his 10 punchouts by the end of the fifth inning after striking out the side to roll the score card over to the top of the sixth.
Loredo tacked on another run for the Hogs with a liner to right to plate Gonzalez, while Craft worked out of a two-on, one-out jam in the bottom half of the frame.
The Victoria, Texas, native retired the Orediggers in order in the seventh stanza, while Colorado Mines got a pair home in the eighth to end the scoreless streak.
Christian Wardle's double to right brought Joe Popp home, while Wardle scored later in the frame on a bounding-ball single through the right half of the diamond from Jace Selsor to set the score at 5-2.
Craft wriggled out of the inning, though, following a fielder's choice ground ball to Hernandez and a pop up to Zents to stop CSM from further chipping away at the lead.
TAMUK's half of the ninth came and went without any runs coming home, while Craft was given the keys for the bottom half to complete his outing.
A fly ball to Stefano and Craft's 10th strikeout went in as the first two outs before Griffin Jones singled into center. The hit turned into the last gasp, however, as the second fly ball of the inning to Stefano became the final out that sent the Hogs to Sunday's regional finale.
With the win, TAMUK reached the 40-win plateau for only the second time under head coach
Jason Gonzales, last accomplished in 2013 when the Hogs went 42-18 en route to an LSC Tournament Championship and a second-straight NCAA South Central Regional appearance.
The Javelinas will play the winner of CSM/CMU at 4 p.m. CT on Sunday, May 20, at Wilder Park to close regional play. For more information on the 2018 NCAA South Central Regional, click
here.
#####
