Texas baseball opens College World Series Sunday against Arkansas

By Steve Habel, Senior Contributing Writer

AUSTIN, Texas — There’s little to deny that the Texas baseball team’s charge into the College World Series for a record 36th time has been charmed at times. But there has been plenty of quality baseball being played by UT, as well.

Some say the Longhorns’ run has been aided by the memory and a push from beyond by former coach Augie Garrido, but doing so is all sentiment over substance. Texas has had to fight its way this far, and it has done so by playing its best baseball when it has counted the most.

The Longhorns (42-21) start play in the CWS at noon Sunday when they battle Arkansas (44-19), a team to which UT lost twice this season[s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level2)], both times in Fayetteville in March. The winner of Sunday’s game will play either Texas Tech or top-seeded Florida at 6 p.m. Tuesday, while the loser of the first two games will play in a win-or-go-home contest at noon Tuesday.

To continue their success — and ultimately garner their seventh national championship and first since 2005 — the Longhorns will have to do even more.

“Everybody on this team believes in one another,” Texas second baseman Kody Clemens said after the Longhorns beat Tennessee Tech, 5-2, Monday to secure their spot in Omaha. “Every single at-bat, every single pitch on the mound, everyone is basically right behind the guy. You’ve got everyone’s back.

“What we’ve done these past few weeks, we’ve definitely stuck together and played as a team and played one pitch at a time”

The bottom line is that Texas (42-21) has been the beneficiary of four things that have propelled it to Omaha for the first time since 2014.

First, there’s the uncanny clutch hitting of Clemens, one of the best players this program has produced in a decade. Then there has been spectacular pitching against some of the nation’s top offensive teams. Added to that has been UT’s steady, and at times spectacular, play in the field, and, perhaps most importantly, the right decisions at the right time have been made by the Longhorns’ second-year coach David Pierce.

“It has never been about me and it never will be,” Pierce said. “The thing that I love is, I told these guys back in the fall, ‘I want this for you guys.’ To watch all that happen was really, really special, and I’m just so proud of our team.

“The things that we’ve had to do … I’ve said it before, we’re not always pretty — a lot of times we’re ugly — but we just figure out how to keep playing. That’s what’s so special about this group.”

The Longhorns’ six national championships rank in a tie for second all-time behind only Southern Cal’s 12 titles … and there’s this: every single one of the late Garrido’s recruiting classes made at least one trip to Omaha after the Longhorns clinched berth this year. Guard coached on the 40 Acres from 1997-2016.

A finalist for the Golden Spikes Award, given to the country’s top college baseball player, Clemens has mashed 11 home runs in his past 15 games, including one in each of UT’s three Super Regional games against Tennessee Tech.

“This is definitely what my class and the class above me have been working for,” Clemens said. “Omaha is the goal. You put in all the work in the offseason, you grind with your teammates, everything in the weight room and on the field you do as a team … you work to get to Omaha.”

Clemens’ 24 homers this season place him second in the NCAA behind Arizona State’s Spencer Torkelson.

Texas relief pitcher Parker Joe Robinson, who came up big in the third game of the super-regional with 2-2/3 innings of one-hit, one-walk work, is another on the team who draws from his father’s appearance in the College World Series and being coached by Garrido.

“My dad last night … we were just hanging out and he was talking about Augie and all the stories and how he had a great time,” Robinson said. “He went to the College World Series, as well (with Garrido’s Cal State Fullerton team), and he was just saying it was the best time and for us to even have the opportunity to get there was great.”

Arkansas cruised through regional play and eventually scored 14 runs in its Game 3 Super Regional-deciding win over South Carolina to advance to Omaha. But the Razorbacks are a different team away from their home stadium and are one of two teams in the CWS to have losing records (9-14) in road and neutral games this year.

The other team is … Texas, which is 10-13 away from UFCU Disch-Falk Field, compared to its 34-5 record at home.

“Our guys understand that that’s what we have to do, and we’re really good and ready to go,” Pierce said. “The one thing about this team is the major factor is the team itself. This team is really bonded well and they understand how to pick up each other. It feels awesome, it really does.”

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