Sam heads to Gulf Coast for three vs Islanders
3/15/2018 4:21:00 PM | Baseball
Games 18-20
March 16-18 • Corpus Christi • Chapman Field (1,000)
No. 22 Sam Houston State (13-4, 3-0 Southland) at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (12-5, 0-0 Southland)
Game 1 • 6pm • March 16: Watch • Live Stats • @BearkatsBSB on Twitter
Game 2 • 4pm • March 17: Watch • Live Stats • @BearkatsBSB on Twitter
Game 3 • 1pm • March 18: Watch • Live Stats • @BearkatsBSB on Twitter
HUNTSVILLE – The No. 22 Sam Houston State Bearkats will look to keep riding its recent wave of momentum into this weekend when they head to Corpus Christi to take on the upstart Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Islanders for three games at Chapman Field beginning Friday night.
Coach Matt Deggs' charges have strung together six consecutive victories entering the weekend after its 7-2 win at Baylor on Tuesday night. This weekend will present a new challenge against an Islander team that has lost five of its last six to the Kats over the past two seasons but has been arguably the biggest surprise among teams in the Southland Conference early in the season.
The Islanders opened up the season with wins in 10 of their first 12 games under Scott Malone before a heading to Norman, Okla., for a four-game set with the Sooners over the weekend. TAMUCC dropped three consecutive close contests to OU before blasting the Sooners, 14-4, in Sunday's getaway game and then followed that up with a 6-3 win at Chapman Field on Tuesday over Columbia.
It will be the league opener for TAMUCC, but not for the Bearkats who swept past Lamar in three games on the road last weekend. Sam's pitching staff has been dominant of late, posting a 1.00 ERA during Sam's current six-game streak, allowing just one extra-base hit in that span. They currently lead all Southland teams with a 2.94 ERA and a .235 opponent's batting average.
The Kats are expected to go with an identical weekend rotation as a week ago, starting with Hayden Wesneski and followed by Riley Gossett and Gabriel Sequeira. That trio combined for 19.0 IP last weekend against Lamar with just two runs allowed between them.
Offensively the Kats are one of two teams in the league with a team batting average above .300 and ranks in the top five in both slugging percentage and on-base percentage. They have slugged an SLC-best 16 home runs by nine separate players, making them one of four teams in the country along with Wichita State, Western Kentucky and Georgia Tech to have had homers hit by at least nine separate players this season.
Four of those homers have come from Hunter Hearn who is tied with teammate Andrew Fregia for the SLC lead with 18 RBI this year. Fregia will go into Friday's opener riding a 13-game streak of reaching base, while Trey Ochoa has reached in a team-best 14 consecutive games. Infielder Chase Cryer has also been on fire of late, going 7-for-13 with a pair of doubles and RBI over his last four games.
