Horns hungry ahead of homestand

The Horns are hungry ahead of this weekend’s homestand. As they almost always are.

After six months around his team, head coach David Pierce learned something new about the Texas baseball team during the four-game road trip to start the season.

“They eat a lot, that’s for sure,” Pierce laughed.

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The Longhorns’ hunger has shown to start the season on the field as well as the team is off to a 3-1 start with four games at home starting tonight at 6:30 p.m. at UFCU Disch Falk Field.

“We’re a hungry bunch,” senior catcher Michael McCann said.

The consistency Pierce saw through the fall and into the first month-plus of 2019 carried through the weekend, and the hungry Horns looked as ready as could be to start the season.

“Honestly they just did a good job, they did everything we kinda thought they would — high character, we had no issues on the road, they were prepared to play,” Pierce said. “It’s really rewarding. I wouldn’t say there’s anything new that we found out other than they did what we expected them to, and what they expected from themselves, so it was a great week.”

The Longhorns have a doubleheader Saturday, giving fans a chance at an entire day’s worth of baseball, in between games on Friday and Sunday as Purdue comes to Austin for the four-game set.

Friday’s game starts at 6:30, Saturday has starts scheduled for 1 and 4 p.m., and the finale Sunday is at 12:30 p.m.

Elder elevated

There was a moment before the Texas season opener at Louisiana when Opening Day pitcher Bryce Elder felt ready for his big moment.

Elder takes the ball Friday night for his second start of the season, looking for a home follow-up to his dominant season-opening outing.

The sophomore pitched into the ninth inning in the eventual extra-inning Longhorn win, 3-1 in 10, but it was before the game when something felt different in a good way.

“I remember right before the national anthem, I’m usually all amped up and everything, and I was talking to coach (Phil) Haig,” Elder said. “I looked up, said a quick prayer and suddenly everything went to very relaxed, and at that moment I knew it was gonna be good. i didn’t know hat it was gonna be but it was gonna be good.”

Looking to keep going, Elder bartered with Pierce before the ninth inning, telling his coach “if i get a runner on you can take me out.”

On the first pitch of the bottom of the ninth Elder allowed a hit to Louisiana hitter Brennan Breaux and that was it, though he tried to talk his way into staying in.

“I felt really good. I mean it was one pitch why not try it again? But it didn’t work,” he said.

Happy to be home

Following the 2-1 series win at Louisiana, Texas was off to Houston to face Rice on a dreary, foggy day on Tuesday.

The turnaround from the loss Sunday was apparent in an offensive explosion, resulting in an 11-4 win.

Junior Austin Todd saw something in his teammates through the weekend and the turnaround to beat the Owls that has him excited ahead of the weekend homestand.

“We’re never gonna back down. Going into the first series of the year you kinda never know what you have. you kinda know your talent throughout the team but you never really know till you actually go play somebody different,” Todd said. “ It’s good to see that, in that game we lost we never really quit fighting, we battled til the end.”

Starting the season with the trip to Louisiana followed by the quick trip to Houston to face Rice has the Horns happy to be back home this weekend.

“It felt really long, like a week and a half really,” McCann said. “It was a long time but I feel like it was a successful weekend.”

Rest of the rotation ready

Blair Henley is scheduled to start Game 2 of the series Saturday afternoon at 1, with freshman Coy Cobb going in Game 3 later that day at 4 p.m.

Henley has the experience and know-how to know that first outing is just a blip on the way to settling in and showing his normal stuff again, according to both Pierce and Elder.

“They’re just competitors and I think with that even with a bad outing they’re gonna bounce right back,” Elder said.

Henley only went two innings in the Longhorns 6-5 win last Saturday, and Cobb lasted 3 1/3 innings of Texas’ 8-6 loss in the finale.

The starter for the fourth game of the series is still to be determined, based on how the first two days of games go and with an eye toward Texas playing back-to-back games on Tuesday and Wednesday.

“Thats just a minor setback really,” McCann said of his pitchers’ outings last weekend. “They’ve thrown really well over the fall and take their bullpens and their work very seriously. I think it was just a minor glitch, I don’t think it’ll happen too often.”

As for the youngsters that saw some action in the early going, it’s a matter of more confidence.

“It’s not for lack of stuff if someone doesn’t have success, it’s the fact they’re young and everything speeds up,” Elder said.
Pierce added, “Well they have great stuff and so with that being said they need to really just trust it and command it. You saw that Tuesday with Kam (Fields) and Cole (Quintanilla) on the back end, it was just dominating stuff but also in the zone.

“If they can get that confidence and feel free and easy … if they can allow that to happen they’ll be successful.”

Top to bottom, young and old

The top of the order was humming through the first four games, and Pierce likes the look of how many bats he has to pick from. From Duke Ellis leading off to Eric Kennedy and Todd to follow him before the big bats, the lineup looks imposing so far.

Texas has 42 hits and 26 runs through four games, with nine stolen bases in 10 tries.

‘What I really like is Duke at the top showing his patience, and it’s hard to show patience early int he year because you wanna get numbers, you wanna be productive,” Pierce said. “He understands his role very well.”

Freshman Eric Kennedy was a big part of everything so far.

“And Kennedy is doing a really nice job in the two-hole,” Pierce continued. “Honestly he’s been our most productive hitter with a little less hits to show for it.”

Freshman Lance Ford has shown he deserves a spot somewhere, as has Bryce Reagan, who’s been starting at third.

“The young guys have been great for us, they’re a huge part in our lineup right now,” Todd said. “For those guys to really settle in this early in the season, they’re really maturing they didn’t even play like freshman.”

Time to shine at Disch-Falk

With the four games against Purdue this weekend, Texas has a chance to really take off to start 2019, and the Longhorns are looking for the crowds that came out down the stretch last year to come back in full force this season.

“The fans are just awesome, they’re in the game and when we’re playing well they’re so loud and rooting for us, it’s great,” Todd said. “It’s just something you want to have behind you, you want to play for, it’s one of the best atmospheres in college baseball.”

McCann gave a nod to the Twitter account and group of fans known as Occupy LF for getting the crowd growing game after game.

“I think the No. 1 thing was our fans. Occupy LF had a big part in that, they got the word out and how good we were doing and the success we were having brought out more and more people,” McCann said. “With the success came more and more people, and we flourished.”

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