Andrew Vinson shut down a feisty Binghamton team for 2 2/3 innings, and the Texas A&M baseball team advanced to the winner’s bracket of the College Station Regional with a 4-2 victory late Friday night at Blue Bell Park.
Top-ranked and regional No. 1 seed A&M (46-14) will face No. 3 seed Wake Forest, a 5-3 winner over Minnesota, at 8 p.m. Saturday.
Binghamton (30-24) faces Minnesota in an elimination game at 3 p.m.
The Aggies will start Brigham Hill (8-1, 1.88 ERA) and Wake Forest will go with Drew Loepprich (3-1, 4.22 ERA)
“Said this before the start of tournament they are a tough team,” A&M coach Rob Childress said. “We were fortunate to come out with a win tonight.”
Great start out of Kyle Simonds and Andrew Vinson and Mark ecker did well.
Vinson came in for starter Kyle Simonds (10-3) with one out in the sixth and struck out six of the nine batters he faced before giving way to closer Mark Ecker, who picked up his seventh save, but not before the Bearcats brought the tying run to the plate.
“When crowd loud as tonight with all the energy it’s easy to feed on that when going like they are,” Vinson said. “Coach Childress and [catcher Michael] Barash did a good job keeping me sane and keeping my heart rate down.”
Jonathan Moroney continued his last-season onslaught, going 3 for 3, including a two-run homer in the second inning when the Aggies got three of their runs.
Hunter Melton scored the other run after getting hit by a pitch, advancing on an Austin Homan single and a throwing error on shortstop Paul Rufo.
A&M’s fourth run was also unearned. Moroney led off the fifth with a single, advanced on an error by third baseman David Schanz and scored on a Homan single to left.
The Aggies had other opportunities but left 12 men on base, all by the sixth inning.
Binghamton had a runner thrown out at home in the first inning by right fielder Nick Banks after three straight two-out singles off Simonds.
The Bearcats scored in the fourth inning after Simonds walked the leadoff hitter Reed Gamache. He narrowed the Aggie lead to 3-1 on an error by shortstop Homan.
In the sixth, Simonds hit the first two batters he faced and catcher Eddie Posavec drove in David Schanz to make it 4-2. Vinson then entered and struck out the next two hitters to get the Aggies off the field.
