PORTALES, N.M. – Eastern New Mexico baseball is 1-0 to begin the 2026 season after an impressive opening day win over Texas A&M-Kingsville, 9-5.
"I was proud of them," said head coach
Riley Price when asked about the team's performance. "I told them going in – 'there is absolutely no room for fear and we have to go out and compete.'"
The Greyhounds definitely competed as they put up nine runs on a Javelinas squad who only gave up 9+ runs in 16 games last season.
TAMUK trusted in junior transfer Garrett Nail with the start. The Sweeny, Texas native held ENMU in check in the first inning, but gave up at least one run in three-straight innings afterwards. His outing did not last long as he went 3.2 innings allowing six hits and seven runs to cross the plate.
Eastern New Mexico was led by
Adrien Martin offensively. The returning first baseman went 3-for-4 at the plate with a career-best two doubles. Martin also scored all three times he connected for a hit.
"We stick together," said Martin when asked about the relationship between him and his teammates. "Our team meshes and love to uplift each other."
The brightest point of the game came in the fourth inning as
Jake Willerup added separation in the score via a three-run blast. The newcomer to the Greyhound baseball program had just faced a hard-breaking slider for a called strike. On the next pitch, Willerup left no doubt and gave ENMU a 7-2 edge at the time.
"I gotta hand it to them," said Price. "They (TAMUK) pitched it really well."
The Javelinas combined for a notable 14 strikeouts. Six different ENMU players struck out more than once in the contest. Despite the major disparity in strikeouts, Eastern was able to pull away victorious.
The Greyhounds saw
Logan Martin and
Ryan Weaver guide the team with two hits each.
Overall, Eastern ran the bases well with three total stolen bases. They also capitalized on the Javelinas mistakes. At one point in the third inning, Weaver struck out swinging, but the TAMUK catcher could not haul in the ball to the glove and trickled all the way towards the Greyhound dugout. Willerup's big homerun came just seconds afterwards.
In relief, ENMU went to Jebadiah Trudeau where he closed out the outing with 2.1 innings and gave up five hits.
Eastern's matchup with UT Tyler is committed to quick, simple substitution changes. The final alteration to the game was TAMUK's
Alexander Sanderson picked up his first save of the season going 1.2 innings He posted a team-high three strikeouts.
Tomorrow the Greyhounds are back in action for a 2 p.m. first pitch at Greyhound Baseball Field.
