No. 10 A&M-Victoria baseball heads to USW with RRAC title on the line

The mission this week is simple for the Texas A&M University-Victoria baseball team.

The No. 10-ranked Jaguars (32-11, 20-4) are two wins away from clinching the program's first-ever Red River Athletic Conference regular season championship. It would be the team's second RRAC championship under head coach Jonathan Stavinoha (2023 RRAC Tournament Championship).

After a dominant series sweep over Texas College last weekend, A&M-Victoria heads to Hobbs, New Mexico, this week to square off with the University of the Southwest in a three-game series on Friday and Saturday.

The series kicks off with a doubleheader at 1 p.m. CT on Friday, followed by a 1 p.m. CT series finale on Saturday.

Leaning on offense

The Jaguars boast an offense in the Top 25 nationally in batting average (.329, 19^th), doubles (93, 12^th) and runs scored (369, 18^th). In conference play, A&M-Victoria is hitting .340 as a team.

A&M-Victoria, riding a four-game winning streak, has had double-digit runs in 16 games this season including each of the last four. During this winning streak, the Jaguars have outscored opponents 51-11.

The Jaguars had 11 different players record an RBI over the course of four games last week. Freshman Beck Zimmerman led the way with eight as he went 6-for-10 at the plate. The Flatonia native is now in the Top 5 among RRAC players with 45 this season.

Garrett Smith ranks second in the conference in RBIs with 52 and third in home runs with 11 after blasting a solo home run in a 12-0 non-conference rout of University of St. Thomas (TX) on Tuesday. He is the first Jaguars with double-digit home runs since Joshua Fonseca in 2019.

The nation's best

Senior right-handed pitcher Blane Zeplin has flourished since joining the team this season.

After an eight-strikeout performance in Game 2 vs. Texas College, the Victoria native is tied for the NAIA lead in strikeouts with 91.

He and Jonathan Jones share the national lead in wins with nine after picking up the winning decisions in Games 1 and 2 last week.

Senior relief pitcher Matthew Mejia ranks 15^th in saves with five this season.

That's helped the Jaguars' pitching staff boast the 13^th-best ERA in the country at 4.02.

Record set

Antonio Benitez ran his way into the A&M-Victoria record books last week.

The Carolina, Puerto Rico, native swiped eight bases across four games to become the new single-season stolen base record holder for the Jaguars. The junior leads the conference with 35 stolen bases and ranks fifth nationally in the same stat category.

This season, Benitez is hitting a team-leading .393 with an on-base percentage of .500 which ranks ninth in the RRAC. Teammate Jose Montanez is eighth in the conference with an OBP of .503.

Scouting the Mustangs

Southwest comes into the weekend's series with a 13-29 record overall and 9-15 in RRAC play after taking two of three games on the road at Xavier (La.) last week.

The Jaguars own a 19-13 edge in the all-time series and have won 10 of the last 12 meetings between the schools.

Follow along

Fans can catch the Live Stream on the USW YouTube channel or follow along with the live stats at TAMUVAthletics.com.