CORPUS CHRISTI — UTSA rebounded from its first defeat of the season to take down Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, 8-3, on Friday night on the first day of the Kleberg Bank College Classic.
C.J. Pickering led the UTSA (4-1) offense with a 2-for-5 showing at the plate with a double and two runs batted in.
The Roadrunners got on the board first with three runs in the first inning off Islanders starter Devin Skapura. John Welborn led off the game with a hit by pitch and RJ Perucki followed two batters later with a one-out walk to move Welborn into scoring position. After Jesse Baker single to center to load the bases, Mike Warren singled through the right side to score Perucki. C.J. Pickering laced a single through the left side immediately after to plate Tony Ramirez and Baker.
Perucki extended the UTSA lead to 4-0 in the second with an RBI single scoring Welborn from third. Welborn’s run was tallied as unearned after he reached on an error by the third baseman.
Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (3-5) chipped away at the Roadrunners lead scoring the next three runs on RBI singles in the second, fifth and sixth innings. Josh Garza delivered an RBI groundout in the second, Kyle Danford another in the fifth and finally Cody Stephens narrowed the UTSA lead to 4-3 with a run-scoring single to right.
The combination of Brock Hartson, Wesley Cox, and Jeremy Filipek on the mound for UTSA neutralized the Islanders attack through the first six innings. Hartson struck out six in 4.2 innings of work allowing one earned run and three hits.
The Islanders comeback bid was cut short in the visiting half of the eighth inning when the Roadrunners bats finally broke through. Tony Ramirez scored on a Mitchell Matulia single through the right side and Welborn followed after a John Bormann hit by pitch with another RBI single right field to bring around Mike Warren. Horacio Correa III finished the offensive burst from UTSA in the inning with a one-out sacrifice fly to center that scored Matulia and gave the Roadrunners a 7-3 lead.
Warren added an insurance sacrifice fly in the ninth.
Matt Sims threw the final 2.1 innings to pick up his first save of the season.
UTSA continues tournament play at 2 p.m. on Saturday against BYU (1-6).