Texas baseball coach Augie Garrido has preached one word the entire season—consistency. Good teams are consistent and find ways to win close games.
“I think we’re very close to being a very good team,” Garrido said. “How consistent can we be functioning and competing as one? Today is an example of that. It’s hard to tell the difference between the first place team and the last place team—it’s mainly about attitude.”
Garrido felt his team has been disconnected this season and lacked the extra effort to find wins in close games. Specifically providing run support for their pitchers who have been dominant of late.
Today he felt like the team’s attitude changed in Texas’ 1-0 victory over rival Oklahoma (26-6, 6-2 Big 12) Saturday afternoon…[s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level2)]
“Everyone was in the game from beginning to end,” Garrido said. “Today they rallied around each other and played almost mistake-free baseball. We’re looking for the right combination of leaders and today that happened.”
Texas (17-12, 3-5 Big 12) pitcher Dillon Peters was nothing short of dominant and led his team by example. Peters took a no-hitter into the top of the eighth inning, before Oklahoma’s Kolbey Carpenter ended it with a leadoff double off the left field wall. Prior to that, Peters had allowed only one baserunner—a hit batter in the fourth. Peters pitched 7 2/3 innings, allowed two hits, while striking out five batters. Peters showed great command throughout the game and kept the ball down in the zone.
Ben Johnson scored the only run of the game and put Texas ahead in the fifth inning through an RBI-single to right center, which drove in Mark Gottsacker from second.
The fifth inning was started by Gottsacker’s single to shallow center and followed by Overton walking Brooks Marlow. With runners on first and second, Ben Johnson’s RBI-single drove in Gottsacker and advanced Marlow to third. However, Johnson was caught trying to steal second, giving the Sooner’s their second out. Weston Hall flew out to deep center to end the inning.
Texas’ Corey Knebel came on in relief for Peters in the eighth inning and put in another strong performance in front of a record crowd of 6, 902—the largest of the season—at UFCU Disch-Falk Field
Knebel picked up the save—his seventh of the season— and retired all four batters that he faced, throwing 10 of 11 pitches for strikes.
Texas generated five hits in the game off Oklahoma’s Dillon Overton, but left five runners stranded.
Overton pitched eight innings, gave up one run off five hits, while striking out six batters in the loss.
The last time Texas shutout Oklahoma was April 29, 2011, when they beat the Sooners 5-0 at home.
The Longhorns return to action Sunday versus Oklahoma at 2 p.m. to finish their three-game series.
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