OKLAHOMA CITY – Sophomore Michael Wacha pitched eight strong innings to lift the second-seeded Texas A&M baseball team to a 4-1 victory over No. 6 seed Kansas State Thursday night during the second day of the Phillips 66 Big 12 Championship at RedHawks Field.
“I thought we played really well tonight in all phases,” Texas A&M head coach Rob Childress said. “It all started for us on the mound. I thought Michael Wacha was as good as I’ve seen him in a long time. We played great defense and got some key hits early, were able to build a lead and score a big run in the ninth inning with two outs. Nick Fleece came in and did a wonderful job for us but I thought Michael Wacha was the story tonight. He pitched great.”
The right-hander limited the Wildcats to just five hits during his outing and retired 13 of 14 batters during an important stretch from the first through the sixth innings allowing the Aggies to build their lead. The Texarkana, Texas, native struck out seven batters while not allowing a walk to improve his season record to 7-3.
Following the victory, Texas A&M (40-18) stands alongside Missouri as the tournament’s only unbeaten teams. The Aggies will get a well-deserved day off before facing the winning of Friday’s Kansas State-Oklahoma match-up at 12:30 p.m. on Saturday.
“It’s a great situation to be in,” Childress added. “That’s what we came up here to do and that’s where we are. We still haven’t done anything yet. We have to go finish. We have a big game on Saturday … I love the day off. That’s something that’s earned and for them to come out tomorrow and have an hour and a half to hit in the cages and relax and enjoy watching college baseball I think that’s good, and then we’ll get back to work on Saturday.”
The Aggies reached the 40-win plateau for 19th time in program history and fourth time in six seasons under Childress’ guidance.
The Wildcats (35-22) drew first blood in the contest as they scored an early run against Wacha during the bottom of the first on an RBI double by third baseman Jason King.
KSU’s advantage did not last long as A&M used a two-out rally during the top of the second to take their first lead of the night at 2-1.
A two out double by senior catcher Kevin Gonzalez got the offense going and sophomore left fielder Brandon Wood followed with a run-scoring single to center that was misplayed by the KSU outfielder allowing Wood to advance to third. Senior shortstop Kenny Jackson narrowly missed a two-run home run during the next at bat, but his consolation prize was an RBI double off the wall in left that gave Texas A&M the lead.
First baseman Jacob House, who is 6-for-10 in two games at the tournament, added a run to the Aggies’ total with an RBI single in the top of the third.
The early runs would be all that Wacha needed as the right-hander was in cruise control for much of the night and allowed only two Wildcats to reach scoring position after the first inning.
“It was pretty simple. Michael Wacha pretty much dominated tonight,” Kansas State head coach Brad Hill said. “We never could string together at-bats. We would get a couple of doubles and need a two-out hit to score them and never got it done. He made pitches when he had to make pitches. He would drop his breaking ball in for a strike. We didn’t even swing at it, and he continued to drop it in for a strike. Once he was ahead 0-1, he would start going in and out on us. He was outstanding and dominated us today.”
Freshman Charlie Curl tacked on an insurance run after entering the game as a defensive replacement in the seventh, singling in the top of the ninth to bring the score to 4-1.
Senior Nick Fleece slammed the door on KSU in the bottom of the ninth to pick up his third save of the year.