Aggies Play Spoiler; Await NCAA Tournament

The Texas A&M baseball was eliminated from the Big 12 Tournament championship earlier in the day, but continued to build momentum for the NCAA Regional Tournament next week with a convincing 11-4 victory that also spoiled Texas Tech's bid to win the title and gain a much needed automatic berth.

The Texas Aggie baseball team continued its offensive explosion at the Big 12 Conference Tournament scoring nine runs in the first three innings and cruising to an 11-4 victory. The win spoiled Texas Tech’s bid to reach the championship game. The Aggies were eliminated earlier in the day when Missouri held on to defeat Oklahoma. A Sooner victory would have sent Texas A&M to Sunday’s title game.

Despite being eliminated, the Aggies came out swinging with Luke Anders driving a towering shot into the right field lights to stake the Aggies to a 1-0 lead. RBI singles by Brodie Greene, Luke Anders , and Kyle Colligan plated four runs in the second inning. After the Red Raiders pushed across two runs in the bottom of the inning, the Aggie offense went back to work scoring four more times with Brooks Raley delivering a big two RBI single.

Ross Hales and Kyle Thebeau took care of the rest on the mound. Hales started and lasted 5.1 innings giving up seven hits and four runs. Thebeau came in and was masterful in clearly his best performance of the season. He completed the final 3.2 innings not allowing any runs, hits, or walks. In fact, Thebeau was dominant striking out five batters and consistently reaching 95 mph on the radar gun.

While the top of the Aggie batting order has struggled for much of the season, they exploded at the plate Saturday night. Each of the top five in the order had multiple hits and generated 12 of the team’s 15 hits on the night. Add in free passes, the top five reached base safely an amazing 18 times.

The Aggies will now return to College Station after a nine-day road trip to Oklahoma and wait to see if they will remain home to host a regional. With the five straight losses going back to the OU sweep a week ago, chances are likely that they will hit the road for the NCAA Tournament. Host sites will be announced at 3:00 PM today, with the complete field released Monday at 11:00 AM.