Texas A&M Baseball: Aggies Blast Past LSU with Ninth Inning Home Run
By Tim England
After being one out away from defeat, Walker Pennington flipped the script for Texas A&M Baseball’s weekend with one swing.
We’ve talked about how young this Aggie Baseball team is all season long. They lost a lot of talent last year. Where will the veteran leadership come from? Can the young guns handle the pressure of SEC Baseball? etc.
Well…Walker Pennington would like to put your minds at ease.
Pennington launched a #Whammy over the left field fence Saturday afternoon in the top of the 9th to give Texas A&M its most significant victory of the 2017 season. Pennington’s blast gave the Aggies the lead for good and clenched the series as Texas A&M (19-10, 3-6) took two out of three from the No. 6 LSU Tigers (19-10, 5-4) over the weekend at Alex Box Stadium.
There was a lot to like about this weekend, particularly the starting pitching. Albeit there are still some nagging concerns. However, this Aggie Baseball team showed some true grit this weekend. Similar to last weekend in closing out the Vanderbilt series, Texas A&M showed up when it needed to and snatched their first SEC series win of the year
Game 1: Texas A&M defeats No. 6 LSU 4-0
Hats off to Brigham Hill. The Pre-Season All American continues to remind the SEC why he’s one of the most talent pitchers in the entire country. Friday was no exception to this as Hill pitched a career high eight phenomenal shutout innings. Hill allowed just three hits and struck out seven. Hill did not allow an LSU runner to reach 2nd base throughout his entire outing. The defense backed up Hill’s performance with error free baseball on Thursday night.
As for the offense, Coll Stanley singled in the top of the 5th for his first career SEC hit. Nick Choruby followed that up with a #Whammy over the right field wall for his 3rd home run of the year and gave the Aggies a 2-0 lead. Later, Cole Bedford came up huge in the top of the 9th, delivering a 2 RBI Single with the bases loaded to give Texas A&M a 4-0 lead. The Aggies outhit the Tigers 11-4 to open the series.
Credit must also be given to LSU’s starter, Alex Lange. With the exception of the Choruby home run, Lange pitched a phenomenal game, striking out 12 Aggies and stranding another 7. However, the LSU offense was nowhere to be found as Brigham Hill silenced the bats and Mitchell Kilkenny closed it out in the 9th.