Credit to Ben Rikard | Associate Director, Athletics Communications – 12thman.com
PALO ALTO, Calif. – The Texas A&M Aggies will kick off their 2023 NCAA Tournament run on the West Coast on Friday when they take on Cal State Fullerton at Sunken Diamond on the first day of the Stanford Regional.
The Aggies and Titans are joined in the regional by host Stanford and San Jose State who will play in the first game of Friday at 4 p.m. CT. Texas A&M and Cal State Fullerton will follow with the nightcap set for 9 p.m. CT.
GAME COVERAGE
TV/STREAMING: Friday’s regional opener will be aired on the ESPN2… Roxy Bernstein will have the call of the Aggies’ game vs the Titans with Will Clements on analysis.
RADIO: Each game in Stanford can also be heard locally on SportsRadio 1150 AM/93.7 FM The Zone…. Andrew Monaco will be in person, bringing the action from Sunken Diamond… the pregame show begins 15 minutes prior to first pitch.
SOCIAL: Fans can get in-game updates on social media by following @AggieBaseball on Twitter.
AGAINST THE TITANS
– The Aggies have met up with the Titans twice before in postseason play, the last coming in 1999 when the teams met up on the field at Rosenblatt Stadium in Omaha when the Titans eliminated the Aggies from the College World Series.
– The teams also met in Starkville, Miss., in 1988 as part of the NCAA South Regional.
– Friday will be the first time the teams have met in the postseason in a non-elimination game.
– Friday marks the first playing between the teams since the 2013 season, the Aggies’ first as a member of the SEC. The Titans were ranked No. 8 in the country and took two of three games at Olsen Field.
AGGIES IN NCAA TOURNAMENT
– Texas A&M is making its 37th appearance in the NCAA Tournament and second straight in two years under Jim Schlossnagle. The Aggies have a 92-81 record all-time in the NCAA Tournament and are 76-50 in regionals.
– A&M is making its 18th appearance in a regional since the NCAA changed to its current format in 1999. The Aggies will be looking to advance to a Super Regional for the 10th time, last doing so a year ago when it was the No. 5 overall seed in the tournament.
– The last time the Aggies advanced to a Super Regional from a regional not at Blue Bell Park was in 2017 when A&M won the Houston Regional. Texas A&M is playing in its first regional outside of the State of Texas since the 2019 when it played in the Morgantown Regional at West Virginia.
– Texas A&M will be looking to accomplish a program first this weekend, having never advanced out of a regional or super regional pod that was not played within the borders of the Lone Star State.
– Texas A&M finished off the 2022 season where all college baseball teams want to finish – Omaha. Now, the 2023 squad is looking to do something which no Aggie team has done before – reach Omaha in consecutive seasons. The 2022 road to Charles Schwab Field was the seventh time the Aggies have been to the College World Series, but never in its baseball history has Texas A&M gone back to the CWS after making it the previous season.
FOUR OF A KIND
A&M’s baseball regional (Stanford, A&M, Cal State Fullerton, San Jose State) is one of only three of the 16 regionals where all four teams have been to Omaha. The others include the Miami Regional (Miami, Texas, Louisiana, Maine) and the Fayetteville Regional (Arkansas, TCU, Arizona, Santa Clara).
AGGIES AGAINST THE FIELD
One of the benefits of testing your mettle over the course of an SEC season is when it comes NCAA Tournament time, you’re battle tested against the field. The Aggies have 13 wins this year against teams in the NCAA Tournament, with 11 of those wins coming against schools hosting a regional. The 11 wins against regional hosts is tied with Arkansas for the most in the tournament field and trails only Florida (13) and Vanderbilt (12). The Razorbacks, Gators and Commodores are all hosts themselves.
TAKEAWAYS FROM THE SEC TOURNAMENT
– The Aggies, seeded No. 10 in the tournament, were the lowest seed ever to make the title game.
– Pitchers Troy Wansing and Justin Lamkin, along with first baseman Jack Moss were named to the all-tournament team. Wansing and Lamkin were the only pitchers to land on the team, while Moss earned the honor for the second straight season.
– The Aggies threw one-hit shutouts vs both Tennessee and South Carolina in the tournament. They were the first nine-inning, one-hit shutouts in tournament history. There had previously been five one-hitters in tournament history with four being of the seven-inning variety and the other being a 3-1 score. The lone no-hitter in SEC Tournament history was also in only seven innings.
– A&M was swept by two teams during the regular season – Tennessee and Arkansas – but picked up wins over both the Volunteers and Razorbacks while in Hoover.
– The Aggies registered wins vs Tennessee, LSU, South Carolina and Arkansas to advance to Hoover, giving A&M at least one win against seven of the eight SEC host schools in the NCAA Tournament.
SONG OF THE SOUTH PAW
The Aggies turned a corner on the mound in Hoover at the SEC Tournament and relied on its bevy of lefties to get the job done. Of the 54.0 innings thrown by A&M pitching in the SEC Tournament, 43.1 were thrown by left handers. In that span they posted a 2.49 ERA with 53 strikeouts and only 14 walks.