Credit to Ben Rikard | Assistant Director, Athletics Communications – 12thman.com
BRYAN-COLLEGE STATION, Texas – The UTSA Roadrunners scored five runs in the first two innings and held the Texas A&M bats silent until the ninth in a 5-1 win on Tuesday night at Blue Bell Park.
UTSA (25-8), the current league leader in Conference USA, plated two runs in the second and three more in the third before turning it over to its pitching staff who used five arms to hold the Aggies (20-13) to just four hits in the game.
Troy Wansing made his second straight midweek start and struck out four without walking a batter but could not make it out of the second inning after allowing five hits. He took the loss to fall to 2-2 for the year.
Ulises Quiroga, a typical weekend starter for UTSA who missed his start due to weather issues over the weekend at Charlotte, got the win in a predetermined staff day. He struck out two and allowed one hit in 2.0 innings of work.
Each of the first three pitchers of the game threw 2.0 innings for UTSA before a clean frame from Luke Malone in the seventh. He then turned it over to stopper Simon Miller for the final innings.
Josh Stewart turned in a solid outing for the Aggies out of the pen with 2.1 innings and three strikeouts as the first of five A&M relievers to hold UTSA scoreless over the final six frames.
TOP AGGIE PERFORMERS
Josh Stewart – 2.1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 3 K
Matt Dillard – 1.1 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K
Carson Lambert – 1.1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 2 K
UP NEXT
The Aggies will have another quick turnaround before jumping back into SEC play, hosting Missouri in the opener of a three-game series on Thursday at Blue Bell Park. The game is set for a 7 p.m. start and is scheduled to be aired on ESPNU.
GAME SUMMARY
T2 | UTSA 2, A&M 0
After Troy Wansing struck out the side and left the bases loaded in the first, the Roadrunners were able to get going in the second. Wansing opened it up with a punchout of Matt King before surrendering a base hit to Isaiah Walker. One batter later Tye Odom singled to right-center field and after taking an extra 90 feet to third base, came all the way home on a throwing error by Aggie right fielder Brett Minnich. Two batters later Taylor Smith smacked a double to the wall in right-center field to score the second run of the frame.
T3 | UTSA 5, A&M 0
The Roadrunners tacked on three more in the third to up the lead to 5-0, first getting on the board when Sammy Diaz connected on a solo home run to left field with one out in the inning. UTSA then got a two-out rally going with a walk and a single to put runners on the corners and Odom followed that up with a two-run double deep into the right-field corner.
B9 | UTSA 5, A&M 1
With just three outs to play with, the Aggies tried to make things interesting in the ninth, putting the first two men on with a walk to Trevor Werner and a single by Jack Moss. A wild pitch from Simon Miller advanced them into scoring position with nobody out and Hunter Haas picked up an RBI by scoring Werner on a ground ball, but Miller followed it up by punching out Minnich on strikes before getting Austin Bost to foul out to end the game.
TEXAS A&M QUOTES
Head Coach Jim Schlossnagle
On tonight’s performance…
“The game went perfectly for [UTSA], and we couldn’t match it. We couldn’t match it on the mound early. There were some positives about some of the right-handers that haven’t pitched much that came out – [Josh] Stewart, [Jaren] Warwick, [Carson] Lambert – I thought were solid. [Matt] Dillard made some nice pitches and made a really nice play. [Evan] Aschenbeck is allowed to have a bad day. The guy has saved us 9 million times, so I’m not worried about it. You have to give every ounce of credit to UTSA.”
Senior pitcher Matt Dillard
On the pitching staff moving forward after tonight’s loss…
“Just keep building, keep working. We’re executing pitches below the strings and we’re in a good spot. We need to continue to do that and limit free bases. We know what we need to do, we just have to execute. It all comes down to execution and we’ll get there.”
Junior third baseman Trevor Werner
On coming up short…
“We just told ourselves we’re going to play to our standard and cut down the free bases after that point, but came up short. They threw their Sunday guy, Friday guy and their closer. They are a regional type team, it is comparable to the kind of pitching that you’d see on the weekends. They certainly attacked the zone and credit to their guys for doing that. These guys are good, and they are fighting for something just like we are.”