Baseball hosts Prairie View A&M after three-game sweep

By Steve Lansdale

AUSTIN, Texas — The University of Texas baseball team rallied in the sixth and seventh innings to tie the score, 4-4, Sunday but were unable to muster any more runs and fell, 8-4, to Oklahoma State. The loss completed a three-game sweep for the Cowboys, the first time a Big 12 opponent has swept the Longhorns this season.

The three-game skid dropped the Longhorns’ record this season to 20-24 overall, and 9-9 against Big 12 competition.[s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level1)] The Cowboys improved to 28-15 overall and 12-5 in conference games.

After spotting the Cowboys a 4-0 lead after the top of the sixth inning, the Longhorns rallied. Outfielder Patrick Mathis plated the game’s first run when he drew a bases-loaded walk. The ’Horns narrowed the deficit to a single run scored Kacy Clemens on a fielder’s choice RBI and Tyler Rand drove in Joe Baker with a single up the middle.

UT tied the score in the seventh on an RBI single by Baker, but OSU pulled ahead to stay in the eighth when Texas reliever Chase Shugart gave up a single and two walks and then hit a batter.

“We started the game down 4-0 and tied the game and then we didn’t take advantage of the home court advantage at all,” Texas head coach Augie Garrido said. “We did the same thing they did but just at a different time. That’s the vulnerability of college baseball that we talk about a lot: it can change pretty dramatically and momentum can shift based on errors, fears, confidence, and it can change quickly. So when we came back and they got their four, that pretty much iced it.

Sunday’s loss came after Texas dropped a pair of games Saturday.

In the opener, Oklahoma State starter Thomas Hatch scattered five hits, including two by Baker, in a complete-game shutout. UT’s Morgan Cooper was the hard-luck loser to fall to 2-3 on the season, giving up just two hits and an unearned run in six innings of work, walking three batters and striking out eight.

In the second game, the Cowboys clinched a series win with a 6-3 win over the Longhorns, thanks in part to three Texas errors.

After spotting OSU a 2-0 lead in the first inning, Texas responded with a run in each of the first two innings to tie the score. Starter Tyler Culbreth silenced the Cowboys’ bats for the next three innings until OSU went ahead to stay with three runs in the sixth inning.

Catcher Tres Barrera, the team’s leading hitter this season with a .307 average, had two of UT’s seven hits and scored a run. Baker and Rand also scored for Texas; designated hitter Travis Jones, Mathis, Gurwitz, Rand and second baseman Jake McKenzie each added a single hit for the offense.

Garrido said that while getting swept obviously is disappointing, the Longhorns still have a chance for a strong finish to the season.

“What do we say to the players when we have a difficult weekend like this? You just tell them the truth. What’s the truth? We’ve got about a month to be together as a team, we’ve seen the good side of our team, and we’ve seen the negative side of our team. We’ve beaten, in a series, the best two teams in the conference. This is the third-best, but they played very well. Timely hitting, no errors. The momentum shift in that game, for me, was the ball Gurwitz hit and the second baseman made that unbelievable play and get that out. We would’ve went ahead right there. That’s how fragile all this is.

“So without making any excuses, we have eight games to play, six league games for sure. Our opportunities are how much better can we get by working hard between now and the conference tournament, getting ourselves in that conference tournament, and win it like we did last year and move into the regional championship playoffs. Some aren’t ever going to buy the fact that we can do that, and therein lies what I told the team: that’s where the challenge is and that’s where the fun is. When you do the kinds of things that other people think can not be done, it’s even more exciting than doing what you’re supposed to be doing. So we have that opportunity.”

The Longhorns host Prairie View A&M at 6 p.m. Tuesday in a game that will be broadcast on the Longhorn Network before heading to Morgantown, W. Va., this weekend for a three-game series against the Mountaineers.

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