In an intense rivalry matchup, Texas A&M club baseball defeated the University of Texas on April 20-21 in a three-game series at Edible Field in Bryan.
In Saturday’s doubleheader, the Aggies beat UT 6-3 in Game 1, but UT rebounded to win the second game, 4-2. On Sunday, the Aggies clinched the series with a convincing 14-4 win.
In Game 1, with sport management senior Cade Bickham on the mound at the top of the seventh, the UT batter hit a missile directly at Bickham, who caught it on the mound.
“It’s really exciting to make a play like that, but I had to just make sure I stay composed to finish the game,” Bickham noted.
After falling to the Longhorns in the second game, the Aggies continued to battle back after the Longhorn’s early 4-0 lead. The comeback started in the bottom of the fifth, when communication senior Joshua Keating and bioenvironmental sciences senior Matthew Calderon scored a run.
Those runs gave the Aggies confidence that they could win it all, civil engineering senior and team coach Aaron Dickerson said.
“Hitting this pitcher as early as we did, I knew they were eventually going to fall,” Dickerson said. “Get the ball to them, and they’re going to throw it away, which they did.”
The Aggies scored 12 more runs, leading to the game being called in the bottom of the eighth at 14-4 with a run rule.
In a fan-favorite moment during Game 2, a stray dog wandered onto the field between innings only to be swiftly escorted off the field by players.
“When you’re playing out here, you never really know what to expect,” Dickerson said.
The Aggies are 14-6 for the season and will play in the National Club Baseball Association regional tournament May 10-12 in Monroe, Louisiana.
Richard Hicks is a communication senior and contributed this article from the course JOUR 359, Reporting Sports, to The Battalion.