Aggies Top No. 1 Texas, 9-3

Saturday, May 29

Oklahoma City, Okla.

12:30 PM

Texas A&M

39-19-1

Texas

46-11

Texas A&M

Texas

May 29, 2010 | Baseball

Box Score

By: Texas A&M Athletics

May 29, 2010

Final Stats

Brodie Greene, Matt Juengel, Tyler Naquin [mp3]

Augie Garrido, Connor Rowe, Russell Moldenhauer [mp3]

OKLAHOMA CITY - Texas A&M scored in each of the first five innings and Clayton Ehlert threw seven strong innings to lead the Aggies to a 9-3 win over top-ranked Texas in the Phillips 66 Big 12 Championship Saturday afternoon before 5,442 fans at AT&T Bricktown Ballpark.

The victory was the fifth in a row for A&M (39-19-1), who finished pool play undefeated in winning for the 17th time in the last 20 games. The Longhorns fell to 46-11 and went winless at the tournament. The Aggies will face Baylor (33-21) in Sunday's 1 p.m. championship game.

"I thought it was a well-played game," A&M coach Rob Childress said. "We continued to play the way we have the last few days in this tournament. Pitching got us off to a really good start, and offensively we scored in the first five innings off a guy that had an awful, awful lot of success against us in the regular-season series."

The Aggies came out strong against Big 12 Pitcher of the Year Cole Green, scoring five runs on five hits in their first two at-bats. After doubling in the first, Tyler Naquin delivered a three-run home run to right center field in the second to make the score 5-1.

Brodie Greene in the fourth, extended the Aggie lead to 8-1.

The Longhorns tried to mount a comeback on Ehlert, as Russell Moldenhauer's two run homer in the fifth pulled UT within five runs, then two hits and a walk to begin the sixth moved the tying run on deck. But Ehlert and the Aggie defense responded, getting Tant Shepherd to ground into a slick 5-2-3 double play and Cameron Rupp to chop out to second base to keep the score the same.

A&M scored its final run of the day in the seventh on a one-out single inside the bag at third by Adam Smith.

Ehlert's gutty performance improved him to 4-6 on the season, as he allowed 10 hits, three runs and four walks to go along with seven strikeouts over seven-plus frames. Shane Minks threw two no-hit innings of relief, allowing only a walk while fanning three.

Green (10-1) suffered his first loss of the season, giving up nine hits and seven earned runs over four-plus innings. He walked one and struck out four. Brandon Workman was touched for four hits, two runs and a walk over 2.1 frames.

The Aggies out-hit Texas, 14-10, on the day, as Naquin and Greene each matched career highs with four hits. Juengel, who hit two home runs in a game for the first time in his career, finished the day 3-for-4 with three RBIs. Connor Rowe had three hits to lead UT.

Texas A&M will meet Baylor (33-21) in the championship game on Sunday, with first pitch scheduled for 1 p.m. Sophomore Ross Stripling (6-3, 3.86 ERA) is scheduled to face Willie Kempf (8-2, 3.31) on the mound. The game will air nationally on FOX Sports Net, and will be broadcast in Bryan/College Station on Suddenlink Channel 22 and in Houston on My20. Fans can also tune in on WTAW-AM 1620 or follow through live stats on big12sports.com.

POSTGAME NOTES: Texas A&M will play for the title for the fourth time on Sunday (champions in 2007, runners-up in 1998 and 2001) ... A&M has won five straight at the Big 12 Championship for the first time in school history ... A&M has won three straight to open a Big 12 tourney for the second time ever (2001) ... the Aggies' three home runs tied a season high and tied a school Big 12 Championship record (vs Missouri, May 24, 2008) ... the Aggies are now 21-19 all-time at the event and 19-13 at Bricktown Ballpark ... A&M is now 3-0 all-time as a No. 4 seed, 3-5 vs a No. 1 seed and 6-11 against a higher-seeded team ... A&M has homered in eight straight games and 11 of the last 12, and has hit half of its home runs (28 of 56) in the month of May ... A&M's eight extra-base hits (5 doubles, 3 HR) tied a season high, set three previous times--Feb. 24 vs SFA (7 2B, 1 3B, 0 HR), March 7 vs Winthrop (7-1-0) and May 1 at Nebraska (5-0-3) ... Brodie Greene and Tyler Naquin matched career highs with four hits apiece ... the Aggies defeated a No. 1-ranked team for the first time since April 14 of last season (a 7-3 win at Rice) ... A&M is now 5-5 all-time against Texas at the Big 12 Championship ... A&M is 15-3 in May, a school record for victories in the month ... the Aggies have pounded out 10 or more hits in 35 of 59 games this year and have reached double-figure hits in 17 of the last 21 ... the pitching staff has struck out 10 or more hitters in 26 games this spring.

ADDITIONAL POSTGAME QUOTES

HEAD COACH Rob Childress

"I thought it was a well-played game. We continued to play the way we have the last few days in this tournament. Pitching got us off to a really good start, and offensively we scored in the first five innings off a guy that had an awful, awful lot of success against us in the regular-season series. I felt like maybe the biggest turning point of the game was Clayton getting out of the bases-loaded, no-out jam in the sixth."

(on Clayton Ehlert effort) "I'm really proud of Clayton Ehlert today. He's had some things going on with his family. He lost his grandmother...his mom Rhonda lost her mom (Alma Franklin) a few days ago, and it's been real emotional for him and his family. I'm just really proud of Clayton's performance."

(on the end to Ehlert's senior season) "Well, a lot of people over the last few years have talked about the Alex Wilsons, the Brooks Raleys, Barret Louxs and John Stilsons, but Clayton has been a huge part of our program over the last four years. He comes to work every day, whether he's starting or coming out of the bullpen. He's just represented himself and his family and our program in a first-class manner. He maintained over a 3.0 GPA, graduated on time and is a special part of what we're about."

(on playing Texas instead of someone else in a game that was not needed to advance to the championship) "I would hope, the way we've played and the things we've gone through as a team, it wouldn't matter who was in the other dugout. We were going to show up and play extremely hard and Clayton was going to give us a great start. With what we've gone through this season and the way we've played over the last six weeks, I don't think our guys would shown up not ready to play."

(on playing Baylor tomorrow) "We're a different team, but they're a different team too. They're playing lot of young guys. Logan Vick has had an amazing year from them. Max Muncy has grown up and those guys aren't freshmen anymore. Willie Kempf, the guy that they're throwing against us tomorrow, had great, great success against us and he's been one of their hottest pitchers this year. I expect to have our hands full tomorrow against Baylor. Those guys have gotten better as the season has gone along too, but I feel like so have we. We played very well Friday at our place, Saturday they got after us in every facet of the game and Sunday they stuck it to us and we got beat 2-1."

A&M SS Brodie Greene

(on getting to Cole Green today) "Well, (Associate Head) Coach (Matt) Deggs harped on it yesterday at practice, taking away the plate. When we faced him last time he had both sides of the plate working for him, so we just got up on top of the plate and went up there expecting a hit every time. A swinging bat is dangerous, so it worked out for us."

(on the mindset entering today's game) "We knew the format and the game didn't matter (as far as advancing to the championship), but it mattered to us. We played the game loose and I think it helped. It's helped the defense that way, just relaxing. Ehlert got us off to a good start and all the pitchers all week have gotten us off to a good start. The bats at the beginning of the game have been great, we've jumped out to early leads. That's all helped us throughout the game."

A&M DH Matt Juengel

(on his day at the plate) "I'm just glad I've been able to have the success I have had this week. Cole Green is a great pitcher. I saw the ball well off him today."

A&M RF Tyler Naquin

(on his home run) "Yeah, man, we came out strong in the first inning, I got on and Brodie knocked me in. We had to come up and keep on rolling against a team like that. You can't ever back down. You have to keep getting after a good pitcher and a good team."

TEXAS HEAD COACH AUGIE GARRIDO

"They did a great job of hitting. They really did the best job of any team all year long against our pitching. That gave them the momentum. They fed off of it and really, really did well with it. They played really well. They played well defensively, they took good at-bats at the plate, and they did it against quality pitching. They beat us, they beat us fair and square and they out-played us. It was their game today."