No. 20 A&M-Victoria baseball downs Huston-Tillotson with emphatic comeback

The Texas A&M University-Victoria baseball team kicked off its home slate with a dramatic win on Wednesday.

The No. 20-ranked Jaguars rallied for a 13-8 win over former Red River Athletic Conference foe Huston-Tillotson in their home opener at Riverside Stadium. A&M-Victoria (2-1) trailed 6-1 after the top of the second inning before roaring back to outscore the Rams (0-1) 12-2 in the final 7-and-a-half innings.

That's back-to-back wins now for A&M-Victoria on the young season.

"I can't say enough (about) how we finally turned it on, picked it up," said head coach Jonathan Stavinoha. "Offense was incredible, just great AB after great AB. We were able to run the bases well and put some pressure on (Huston-Tillotson). That was good to see."

After falling behind by five runs early, the Jaguars cut the deficit to 6-5 with a stretch of four unanswered runs between the second and fourth innings thanks to RBIs from Antonio Benitez, Connor Kaiser, Zion Hankins and Jackson Purcell.

After Noah Alvarez extended the Rams' lead to 7-5 in the sixth, the Jaguars scored three runs in the sixth with freshman Beck Zimmerman putting A&M-Victoria in front for good.

The freshman from Flatonia delivered a go-ahead, two-run single with one out to put the Jaguars up 8-7. It was the first career RBIs for Zimmerman.

"It was just so surreal," Zimmerman said. "It felt great, that's all I can really say. We worked all fall, did everything we could for these moments in the spring. This is what we do."

Zimmerman, Purcell, Kaiser and Benitez delivered multi-RBI performances with Benitez stealing the show, going 3-for-5 with three RBIs, three runs and four stolen bases – A&M-Victoria had eight stolen bases as a team. The Carolina, Puerto Rico, native is now hitting .636 through three games and is riding a three-game hit streak to open up his career with A&M-Victoria.

Purcell went 2-for-5 with a pair of RBIs and has now hit safely in 10 of the last 11 games for the Jaguars dating back to last season. It's the second consecutive multi-RBI game for Kaiser.

A&M-Victoria also got hits from Jose Montanez, Garrett Smith, Roberto Olguin, Zion Hankins and Xavier Ortega as the Jaguars racked up 13 hits against the Rams.

"(Antonio), he's a sparkplug," Stavinoha said. "When he gets on, he's gonna score because he can run and hurt you in so many ways. If he puts it in play, things are gonna happen.

"Kaiser, too, he hit the ball hard all night. Purcell, coming up with the RBIs over and over. Constantly having those guys on, it's fun to watch."

Matthew Mejia earned his first win of the season with a stellar three innings of relief, allowing just one run on one hit.

Justin Mireles and Constendinos Demetriou hurled a combined three innings of relief to close the game out with Mireles allowing one run on two hits with a pair of strikeouts in two innings of work. Demetriou just allowed a hit and a walk while striking out a pair in the ninth inning to seal the win.

The Jaguars open a three-game set against Wiley University starting at 6:30 p.m. on Friday at Riverside Stadium.