Blair Henley hurls gem to lift Texas baseball to sweep of Baylor

By Steve Lansdale

AUSTIN, Texas — The Texas baseball team jumped out to a 3-0 lead after one inning and starting pitcher Blair Henley scattered five hits over seven runs to lead the Longhorns to a 4-1 victory over Baylor at UFCU Disch-Falk Field.

With the victory, UT completed a three-game sweep of the Bears and [s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level2)]improved to 22-12 overall this season and 9-3 in games against Big 12 teams. Baylor slipped to 14-16 overall, and 3-9 against Big 12 opposition.

“It was really just a great weekend,” UT head coach head coach David Pierce said of the three-game sweep. “We saw some outstanding defense, great pitching and that’s what we’re built around. Today we had some timely hits. We were aggressive early and our players really executed. Then we got solid pitching from Blair (Henley). Having (Josh) Sawyer come out in the ninth inning was big for him as well as for us. For him to get a six-out save was outstanding.”

The Texas offense provided all the runs that would be needed immediately. Center fielder started the bottom of the first with a leadoff walk and subsequently scored the game’s first run on a singly by second baseman Kody Clemens, who then scored what proved to be the last run the Longhorns would need on designated hitter Zach Zubia’s sixth home run of the season.

Those three runs were more than enough for Henley, who quickly deflected the credit for his performance to the defense playing behind him.

“My defense did the work,” Henley said. “I just had to throw pitches and they did their job. It’s always fun to see them kill it out there when I’m throwing balls down the middle and they’re running it down in the outfield or catching line drives at second. I felt pretty good but, at the same time, they did their job.”

Baylor trimmed the deficit to 3-1 in the second inning on a home run by third baseman Davis Wendzel, but that was the last of the Bears’ offense. In addition to the five hits, Henley walked three and struck out four before giving way to Sawyer, who struck out a pair and allowed one hit over two innings.

But the story of the game was Henley.

“I thought he was good,” Pierce said of his sophomore starter. “He got behind [Davis] Wendzel in a 3-1 count and tried to throw a strike and it got extended on him. That was the only pitch that hurt him. He was great all day. Then later in the game when it started to look like Baylor was cheating away to the outer half of the plate he started to mix some pitches in as well as hit them with the breaking ball. It was just a really great performance by him and the defense.”

The Longhorns head to College Station to face Texas A&M Tuesday before heading north of the Red River for a three-game series at No. 20 Oklahoma.

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