HAMMOND, La. – The Texas A&M-Corpus Christi baseball team could not finish off a comeback in its game against Southeastern Louisiana on Saturday afternoon, coming close to erasing a big deficit in one fell swoop but failing to go all the way and falling by a final of 10-5.
Fresh off a big win in the opener the night before, the Islanders (16-18, 5-11 SLC) came out colder with the bats on Saturday, going down in order at the plate in each of the first three innings of the ballgame and not recording their first hit until
Jackson Smith broke the spell with a two-out double in the fourth. While this was going on, the Lions (22-14, 11-6) got their offense revved up after getting shut down for most of Friday, scoring two in the third, one in the fourth and three in the fifth to jump out to a big 6-0 lead. The first real chance at stemming this tide for the visitors came in the top of the fifth, when
Karson Krowka drew a walk and
Matt Evans laced a single into right to place a pair of runners on with two outs. Krowka would then steal third to bring their first run just 90 feet away, but a strikeout right after would cut off this rally without any scoring.
Heading into the later innings still scoreless, A&M-Corpus Christi finally erupted offensively in the sixth, putting together a five-run frame to claw its way back to within just a run after all that had happened earlier in the night. The outburst would start with one out, with the team loading the bases after a single from
Cade Sanchez, another double by Smith and a walk after a nice nine-pitch at bat from
Isaiah Afework. In the next plate appearance,
Hunter Azemar would then draw a free pass of his own, allowing Sanchez to come home the easy way and get the Islanders on the board for the first time.
This walk would chase Southeastern starter Lakin Polk from the game in favor of Dakota Lee, and on the reliever's first plate appearance of his outing,
Jarrett Flaggert would greet him with the biggest swing of the night, smashing a 1-1 breaking ball well into the night for a grand slam that brought the score all the way up to 6-5. This was Flaggert's first homer of the season after he knocked four out of the park in his first year with the team in 2025, with his most recent coming on April 19 of last season in a road contest against McNeese. It was also the first grand slam for A&M-Corpus Christi in nearly two years, ironically coming on the same date in 2024 when
Isaac Webb hit one to walk off Lamar at Chapman Field.
Now right back in the game in an instant, A&M-Corpus Christi could unfortunately not keep the momentum rolling, allowing the Lions to score two runs in both the seventh and eighth innings to fall right back into the hole it worked so hard to dig out of. After this, another comeback was not in the cards, as the team went down quietly in the final two frames to walk away with the defeat.
The two standout days in the lineup came from Smith and Flaggert, with the latter picking up the team's lone multi-hit game with his two doubles and the latter tallying a game-high four RBIs on one swing. The other knocks on the day went to Sanchez, Evans and
Christian Smith-Johnson, while Azemar recorded the only other RBI with his bases-loaded walk. On the mound,
Kade Budd put in the best shift, working a scoreless sixth inning on just 15 pitches to keep things within reach.
The Islanders will now look to win the series over Southeastern in the rubber match on Sunday afternoon, wrapping their time in Hammond up starting at 1 p.m.
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