CORVALLIS, Ore. — No. 2 seed Texas A&M ended fourth-seeded UTSA's postseason run and 2013 season with a 6-1 victory in front of 2,518 fans at Goss Stadium on Saturday at the NCAA Tournament Corvallis Regional.
After the Aggies (33-28) scored a pair of runs in the opening inning, the Roadrunners (35-25) drew to within a run in the third, but that was as close as they got the rest of the way. Texas A&M put the contest out of reach with a three-run fifth and it added an insurance tally one frame later.
Cole Lankford had five of of the Aggies' 12 hits and Parker Ray (2-1) allowed just five hits over 8.2 innings.
Lankford had four singles, a double and drove in two runs to help send Texas A&M into Sunday’s elimination game against the loser of tonight's Oregon State/UC Santa Barbara winners bracket contest.
Ray struck out eight and allowed just one run before being pulled with two outs in the ninth when the Roadrunners threatened with runners on first and second. A.J. Minter induced a ground ball to second base to end the contest.
The Western Athletic Conference Tournament Champion Roadrunners got a double from Horacio Correa III and singles from Jesse Baker, Riley Good, RJ Perucki and Tony Ramirez in its third NCAA postseason appearance.
The Aggies started the game with a Mikey Reynolds double and a run-scoring triple by Blake Allemand — both down the right field line — and Lankford followed with a two-bager to left center to give A&M a 2-0 advantage just three batters into the game.
UTSA got one of those runs back in the third when Good extended his hitting streak to 18 games with a single to center. He then moved to second when Daniel Rockett was hit by a pitch and scored on a Perucki base hit to left.
The Aggies picked up three runs on four hits in the fifth to break the game open.
Three consecutive singles to start the panel, the last through the left side of the infield by Hunter Melton, pushed one run across the plate. After a fly out to right, Daniel Mengden laced a two-run double just inside the left-field line to extend the lead to 5-1 and chase Roadrunners starter Brock Hartson from the tilt.
Lankford ripped his fourth hit of the afternoon up the middle to plate Reynolds, who walked and advanced to second on a groundout, and push the Aggies’ edge to 6-1 in the sixth.
That was more than enough offense for Ray, who kept the UTSA bats at bay eight days after limiting No. 2 national seed Vanderbilt to three hits in eight frames in the Southeastern Conference Tournament.
Hartson (9-5) allowed five runs on nine hits in his 4.1 stanzas of work and Wesley Cox surrendered a run on three hits over the final 4.1 innings.