Baseball blasts Incarnate Word, 10-3

By Steve Lansdale

AUSTIN, Texas — The Texas baseball team overwhelmed an overmatched Incarnate Word team Tuesday, jumping out to a 7-1 lead after three innings before cruising to a 10-3 victory at UFCU Disch-Falk Field.

The win [s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level2)]boosted the Longhorns’ season record to 32-19, while Incarnate Word slipped to 20-32.

“You come in after exam week and you’ve got nine days off,” Texas head coach David Pierce said. “You want to come out, you want to be clean defensively, you want to pitch well … and I thought we swung the bats well.

“I was impressed with our offense — it’s not that we got a lot of hits, but the way we did it, we didn’t try to do too much. We stayed in the middle of the field, and when we got balls to turn on, we turned on them.”

The UT offense hammered out 15 hits after falling behind on a solo home run in the top of the first by ICU third baseman David Anaya off Texas starter Nick Kennedy. The Longhorns scored the equalizer in the bottom of the first when designated hitter Austin Todd and right fielder Patrick Mathis smacked back-to-back singles before left fielder Travis Jones drove in Todd on a sacrifice fly.

Texas went ahead for good in the second inning when center fielder Zane Gurwitz singled and then scored on catcher Michael Cantu’s fifth home run of the year. The Longhorns doubled their margin when first baseman Kacy Clemens doubled to right to knock in second baseman Bret Boswell and shortstop David Hamilton.

Cantu admitted that it was hard for the Longhorns to maintain their focus through the nine-day interruption for exams.

“It felt great to get back on (the field),” Cantu said. “We have been scrimmaging, but it’s nothing like a real game. It’s tough getting swept (by TCU) and having to sit on it for a whole week-and-a-half, or whatever it may have been. I think we came out, I think we swung the bats well and our pitching made pitches when they needed to.”

Back-to-back doubles by Boswell and Hamilton drove in two more runs in the third inning to give Texas its 7-1 lead, and a two-run home run by Mathis and a Gurwitz sacrifice fly added three more runs in the eighth inning.

Kennedy improved his record to 8-1 on the season, allowing just two hits through four innings, and Pierce brought six different relievers out of the bullpen to nail down the win for the Longhorns.

The Longhorns return to Disch-Falk at 6:30 p.m. Friday night when they host the first of three games over the weekend against West Virginia in the first of three games against West Virginia, all of which will be shown on the Longhorn Network.

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