Jim Schlossnagle evaluates performance of Nathan Dettmer's in regional final

Texas A&M‘s loss to Stanford on Monday eliminated the Aggies from the NCAA Tournament, as the Cardinal defeated the Aggies 7-1 in their winner-take-all championship game of the Stanford Regional. Junior pitcher Nathan Dettmer got the start on the mound for Texas A&M on Monday, and after the loss, Aggies’ head coach Jim Schlossnagle was asked if he spoke to his ace before their must-win, elimination game.

“No I didn’t, we’ve had plenty of talks this year,” Schlossnagle said. “He knew what was at stake, I think maybe his teammates had some conversations with him just to let him know how much we all believe in him and I think he did great.”

Dettmer pitched six innings for the Aggies on Monday, keeping their explosive lineup at bay for some time, allowing just two runs in the first five innings of the game. But that was until a Malcolm Moore home run in the fifth inning extended Stanford’s lead to 4-1 and marked the end of Dettmer’s day on the mound.

“I mean I almost was going to get him against Malcolm Moore, but I thought he had made good pitches to Moore,” Schlossnagle said. “Thought he still had stuff left in the tank and Moore had hit the homer off Will (Johnston) last night and you see he almost hit one off us today during the next at bat. In hindsight there’s obviously there’s things you wish you could take back maybe, but at the end of the day, we couldn’t score. That was the thing.”

Dettmer ended the day with eight strikeouts, allowing six hits and four runs. But the Aggies offense struggled most, connecting on just seven hits for one run on a .212 batting average as a team on Monday.

“They made pitches, we had competitive at bats, we got in deep counts, we got guys on base, just two out hitting. We left 10 on they left six. They hit two balls out of the ball park and we just missed on a few. I thought we landed on some balls but Nathan did great, Nathan did awesome and so did Shane (Sdao), so just wasn’t our day,” Schlossnagle said.

The season may be over for the Aggies, but it’s not for Stanford, as they host another team from the Lone Star State in Texas for their Super Regional matchup which starts this Saturday.