LAREDO, Texas – The Cameron baseball team would hit seven home runs in route to a 23-22 win over Texas A&M International on Sunday at Jorge Haynes Field in Laredo, Texas.
Six different Aggies would hit a home run Sunday, with Lance Barnett collecting two, Ryan Allen, Jayce Clem, Kai Hershberger, Trent Mallonee, and Hunter Smith would hit the other five. As a team, CU totaled 23 hits on the afternoon, outlasting the Dustdevils. Zac DeLong, Smith, and Holden Tate had a double.
Barnett, Mallonee, and Smith collected three hits. Clem, Spencer Simpson, Tate, and Beau Williams had two hits, and Allen, Will Bradley, DeLong, and Hershberger added one.
Mallonee drove in five, Barnett and Smith had four RBI, Hershberger collected three RBI, DeLong and Tate tallied two, and Allen, Bradley, and Clem drove in one.
10 different Aggies scored a run, with Clem and Williams scoring four, Barnett, Hershberger, and Smith recording three, Allen tallied two, and Colby Flood, Mallonee, Simpson, and Tate scoring one.
Head Coach Kyle Williams had to dig deep to navigate the pitching Sunday, as he ended up turning to game one starter Clayton McClenan to close it out and secure his first save for Cameron. Brendan Moran started on the bump, throwing three innings and allowing three runs on four hits and five walks. Weston Max pitched an inning, giving up two runs on a hit and three walks. Marcos Feria went 0.1 innings, surrendering four runs, walking four, and striking out one. Evan Nichols pitched 1.1 innings allowing four runs, on four hits, with a strikeout. Grayden Stauffer faced four batters, surrendering four runs, three earned, on two hits. Ben Williams threw 0.2 innings, allowing three runs on three walks. Nate Creason got the win, pitching 1.2 innings and giving up a run on two hits with two strikeouts. McClenan went one inning, allowing a run on two hits.
TAMIU scored in the first to take a 1-0 lead.
Cameron responded with five runs in the second off home runs from Barnett, Clem, and Mallonee.
The Aggies added four runs in the third off two two-run home runs from Barnett and Hershberger to take a 9-1 lead.
In the fourth, CU scored six more runs. Barnett singled in Simpson, Hershberger drove in Beau Williams with a sac fly, Smith hit a three-run home run, knocking in Barnett and Clem, and Allen hit a solo home run to make it a 15-1 advantage.
International would score four runs in the fourth and four more in the fifth to make it a 15-9 game.
Smith doubled in Hershberger and then came in to score on a single from Bradley to make it 17-9 in the top of the sixth.
In the bottom half, the Dustdevils would tie the game at 17-17.
Cameron got a run in the seventh off a Tate pinch-hit single that scored Williams.
TAMIU would take a 20-18 after seven innings.
Both teams took a break from scoring in the eighth before the Black-and-Gold scored five runs in the ninth to take a 23-20 lead. Tate doubled to center to drive in Williams, DeLong came through with a pinch-hit double to score Clem and Tate, and Mallonee singled to right to score Smith and Flood.
International did not give up easily as they would load the bases in the bottom of the ninth and score a run, but a fly ball to Tate for the second out and a perfect throw would get the running tagging up at second, trying to advance to third to end the game.
Cameron will host Texas A&M-Kingsville on Friday, Feb. 24, at 3:00 pm
