The New Mexico State University Aggies continued their win streak at home with another sweep over the weekend, this time with a 3-0 sweep against the Prairie View A&M University Panthers. The Aggies were dominant in the first game, winning 22-4 in seven innings. The second and third games were similar stories with the Aggies winning 10-8 and 12-2. The series raised the Aggies to a winning record of 9-6 for a formative start to the season.
Heading into the series, the Aggies currently sit first in their conference and 13th in the nation when it comes to runs scored, with a whopping 122 total. They also lead the conference in five additional stats, walks, on-base percentage, scoring, triples and triples per game. Senior Nick Gore leads the offensive effort with an 11-game hitting streak and has more than one hit in seven different games.
In the second game of the series, the Aggies continued to outscore the Panthers by a wide margin. Both teams were scoreless in the first inning with both sides going three up and three down. That all changed in the second, when the Aggies scored eight runs after striking out all three of the Panthers batters in the top of the inning.
The aggressive offense started with junior Sheehan O’Connor’s two-run RBI double to left field. The next batter, senior Edwin Martinez-Pagani, singled the ball to bring O’Connor home for the first run. Martinez-Pagani came in to score the fourth run after a throwing error by the Panther’s short stop. Gore continued his hitting streak and singled the ball up the middle allowing for two more runs to be scored. The Aggies batted around, and sophomore Mitch Namie came up to the plate again and brought in junior Titus Dumitru while Gore made his way to third. Finally, Martinez-Pagani would be walked on base which pushed Gore to score the final run of the inning making the score 8-0.
The Panthers finally scored in the third inning with two runs, to which the Aggies responded with one run, putting the score at 9-2 at the end of the third inning.
Both teams slowed down in the next three innings, until the Aggies scored a single run at the bottom of the fifth with senior Damone Hale being the one to make it home, and both teams went scoreless again in the fourth and sixth innings with quick outs.
The Aggies swapped out pitcher senior pitcher Josh Sharman for senior Cade Swenson at the start of the seventh inning. After the Panthers scored three runs on Swenson, the Aggies swapped in junior Zack Zwaschka. Unfazed, the Panthers went on to rake in three more runs for a total of six in the inning, to bring the Aggie lead down to 10-8.
The top of the eighth inning saw the Aggies switch to sophomore pitcher Saul Soto. They went on to prevent the Panthers from scoring even with all the bases loaded but were unable to score any runs of their own in the bottom half. Going into the final inning, the Aggies swapped pitchers once more, this time for sophomore Hayden Lewis, who would finish the game by forcing three outs in a row.
The players with the highest batting average of the day were junior Austin Corbett with 0.667, Gore with 0.467, and senior Romeo Ballesteros with 0.408. Sharman recorded the most strikeouts of the pitchers, totaling eight, after facing 21 batters.
“I think right now I’m just seeing the ball really big,” said Nick Gore in regards to how he’s been able to maintain his heating streak thus far. “Putting my swing on a lot of baseballs and getting my pitch to hit.”
After the contest, head coach Jake Angier talked about the team’s performance in the second game.
“It was shaly at the end, and I think the reason that happened is because we lost focus,” Angier said, “Sometimes that stuff needs to happen so that you can learn not to do that in the future.”
The Aggies will now hit the road for a two-game series against the #17 ranked Texas Tech University Red Raiders on Tuesday, March 12 at 5:30 p.m. and Wednesday, March 13 at 1 p.m. in Lubbock, Texas. Coverage will be streamed on ESPN+.
