A&M is once again getting hot at right time
Texas A&M has a knack for heating up at the right time under Jim Schlossnagle — and that time would be now for the Aggies.
Tenthseeded A&M defeated seventhseeded Tennessee 3-0 on Tuesday in the opening round of the SEC tournament in Hoover, Ala. The first day of the tournament features four elimination games, leading to the start of double-elimination play on Wednesday.
The Aggies (33-23), whose Tuesday win likely helped solidify a spot in the NCAA Tournament starting next week, are scheduled to face secondseeded Arkansas (39-15) on Wednesday afternoon.
The Aggies were batting in the top of the ninth with the three-run lead when a steady drizzle through the first eight innings suddenly picked up and led to a more than two-hour rain delay. A&M wasn’t fazed.
“You’ve just got to play good baseball,” Schlossnagle told the SEC Network of the Aggies’ approach this time of year and with the season on the line. “You can’t worry about the ‘what ifs’ and ‘if this happens then that happens’ — at the end of the day, everything before now is just pretense.”
Last summer after the Aggies narrowly missed playing in the championship series of the College World Series in Omaha, Neb., a then-Purdue pitcher named Troy Wansing posted to social media that he was “excited for what’s next” — a transfer to Texas A&M.
That largely low-key transfer paid big dividends for the Aggies on Tuesday. Wansing allowed a lone hit over eight innings to grab a victory that might be vital to A&M’s chances of making the NCAA Tournament.
Wansing, a 6-foot-4 lefthander, entered Tuesday’s game with a losing record (2-3) and an ERA flirting with six (5.98). The regular season didn’t matter, however, as Wansing relied heavily on an effective curveball while striking out seven batters and walking none against a program that has won 15 of its last 20 games.
“‘Schloss’ actually sat me down (Monday) and was like, ‘Hey, if you just go and do your thing, you’re going to dominate these guys,’ ” Wansing told the SEC Network.
“That was all the confidence I needed, and that showed.”
Following the two-hour delay, A&M reliever Evan Aschenbeck closed out the contest by pitching a scoreless ninth inning. The Volunteers (38-19) swept the Aggies in a three-game series in Knoxville, Tenn., in late March.
“There are a lot of SEC teams that have benefited from going home early from here,” said Tennessee coach Tony Vitello, in trying to find a bright side of more rest for his team between now and the start of the NCAA Tournament. “… The league (also) prepares you for what’s next.”
The Aggies scored the game’s first run on a fielder’s choice to third base by Trevor Werner in the third inning, and an inning later, Austin Bost collected an RBI single. A&M scored its final run in the sixth on Jace LaViolette’s solo homer into the pine trees far beyond right-center field. LaViolette’s 19 home runs this season are an A&M freshman record and broke that of Aggies icon John Byington’s 17 in 1987.
Last year, Schlossnagle doubled the number of College World Series victories in program history with two before the Aggies bowed out of Omaha with a 5-1 loss to future SEC foe Oklahoma in the final four of the CWS. A&M had eliminated rival Texas two games prior in Omaha. Schlossnagle, 52, led TCU to all five of its CWS appearances in program history from 2010-17 prior to leaving for College Station nearly two years ago.
South Carolina defeated Georgia 9-0 in the tournament’s first game Tuesday. The SEC tournament, which dates to 1977, started with two shutouts for the first time in its history.
The roller-coaster Aggies are suddenly playing some of their best baseball immediately after playing their worst baseball. After winning their series opener against Alabama on May 12 at Blue Bell Park, the Crimson Tide outscored the Aggies 23-1 over the next two games.
A&M bounced back last weekend by taking two out of three at Mississippi State, which missed out on the 12-team tournament in the 14-team league, when the Aggies absolutely needed wins to solidify a second consecutive NCAA Tournament berth under Schlossnagle.
“There were some balls hit pretty hard there toward the end that they hit right at us,” Schlossnagle said of the previously hot-hitting Volunteers, whom Wansing and Aschenbeck efficiently cooled off. “We’ll take it and just keep moving on.”