In quite the odd weekend at Olsen this weekend, the Aggies pulled off the sweep of a clearly overmatched Cornell team. The Big Red Nard Dogs made the trek down from Ithaca, NY to begin their 2018 campaign, but they were greeted by a decent showing from A&M. And by decent, I mean the Ags outscoring Cornell by a combined score of 33 to 4.

The main takeaway from this series is that A&M was easily able to take care of business against a struggling opponent. Outside of that, there isn’t much to glean from this weekend. The Aggies performed as expected against a team that hasn’t historically been very competitive with bigger programs like A&M. Going forward, the Ags’ competition will be much better, so having a tuneup series like this should at least help keep them loose.

Friday Game 1: Texas A&M 3, Cornell 2

• Easily the closest game of the series, the first game of the doubleheader was dominated by the pitchers. Stephen Kolek tossed six innings of one-run baseball, striking out five and allowing three hits and three walks. Kaylor Chafin allowed Cornell’s other run in his one inning of work, but sidearmer Nolan Hoffman pitched extremely well to close out the game. In his two innings, he allowed just one walk, while keeping Cornell off the board en route to his first save of the season.
• The Aggies’ scoring started off with a Logan Foster RBI double in the second. In the fifth, Zach DeLoach’s sacrifice fly gave A&M a 2-1 advantage, before Braden Shewmake tallied their third and final run with an RBI groundout.

Friday Game 2: Texas A&M 22, Cornell 0

• Holy offense, Batman. The Aggies sent 12 men to the plate in the first inning alone, scoring seven runs on eight hits. They tacked on three more in the second and six more in third, which put the game essentially out of reach at 16-0 after just three frames. The Ags added two in the sixth and four in the eighth to reach their final score of 22-0. LOL.
• The big story from this one was Chris Andritsos, who hit for the cycle. He went 4 for 6 on the day, with five RBIs and three runs scored. With his cycle, he became the first Aggie hitter to do so since all the way back on February 20, 2018, when Zach DeLoach did it against SFA. Yeah, two cycles in one week.

Saturday: Texas A&M 8, Cornell 2

• Mitchell Kilkenny was outstanding once again on Saturday. He took a no-hitter into the seventh inning, when Cornell’s DH smacked a liner over second base with one out. All told, Kilkenny tossed 6.1 innings of scoreless baseball, allowing just the one hit and no walks while striking out eight Cornell hitters. If he continues to pitch this well going forward, the Aggies will have one of the most formidable weekend rotations in the SEC.
• Chris Andritsos was on fire again, going 3 for 3, with a double, two RBIs, a walk, and two runs scored. Keep doing the thing, big man.

What’s Next?

The Aggies will welcome HBU and Incarnate Word to Olsen Field on Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively. HBU sits at 3-5, having dropped the last three games at Fresno State last weekend. Incarnate Word comes in at 5-3, after taking three of the four games they played in the Irish Alamo Classic in San Antonio over the weekend. One of those wins actually came against the same Notre Dame team that took down LSU on opening weekend, so they’re definitely no slouch. Should be fun! First pitch is slated for 6:30 for both games. See y’all at Olsen!