SAN ANTONIO – The Roadrunners played game one of their series against the Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Islanders Friday night and won 10-6. 

UTSA started hot with a home run from Matt King that brought in one and gave the Roadrunners a 2-0 lead early. “It’s always good to get ahead early,” King said. “I think it puts more confidence into the pitchers and really brings energy to the dugout.”

The Islanders would respond one inning later with an RBI single to score an unearned run and cut the lead to one. 

In the third, UTSA would go up big thanks to a home run from Antonio Valdez that brought in three and an RBI double from Taylor Smith to extend UTSA’s lead to six. This is Valdez’s fifth home run of the season. 

Two innings later, the Islanders would have their own rally thanks to mistakes from UTSA’s defense and put three runs on the board to set themselves back into the game. “Right now, that’s the one part of the game that we need to really work on,” said coach Pat Hallmark on the mistakes.

The runners would respond that same inning with an RBI double from Leyton Barry and an RBI single from Valdez to give UTSA a 10-4 lead with four minutes left to play. 

After six innings pitcher Luke Malone exited the game after allowing four unearned runs and eight strikeouts. “Jumping out to that early lead was great … if someone gets on base, there’s not as much pressure … I just attacked the strike zone and let the defense work,” Malone said after the game. 

The Roadrunners would give up two more runs in the ninth but would come away with the victory 10-6. 

UTSA will play game two against the Islanders at 2 p.m. on Saturday, March 11, at Roadrunner field.

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