Stayin’ Alive, Texas Baseball forces game three in Super Regional
GREENVILLE, N.C. - No. 9 Texas Baseball started the game with two runs in the first inning, then went silent until the bottom of the seventh allowing No. 8 East Carolina to score seven runs. The game seemed to be slipping away from Texas who had rotated four pitchers in by the seventh.
Texas then unleashed what everyone knows as Texas Fight. Bottom of the seventh, Douglas Hodo III hits a two run home run scoring Trey Faltine making the score 7-4 with East Carolina in the lead.
In the eighth with two runners (Murphy Stehly, Austin Todd) on first and third, Skyler Messinger sends the ball over the right field wall that tied the game, 7-7. The announcers on television changed their rhetoric and also stop showing Pirates fans giving the horns down sign.
Still in the eighth, Dylan Campbell put Texas in the lead 8-7 with a solo home run over the right field.
Top of ninth, Texas was three outs away that would keep the dream of Omaha alive by sending the Super Regional into a Game 3. Andre Duplantier II got two batters out when East Carolina's second baseman Jacob Starling hit a home run over left field to tie the game 8-8. Duplantier II strikes out third baseman Alec Makarewicz for the final out for East Carolina.
The bottom of the ninth, first batter, Golden Spikes Award Finalist Ivan Melendez is the first batter. Surely, God was bombarded with prayers that Melendez would hit his 32nd home run to end the game. He singled to center. Austin Todd was intentionally walked and Silas Ardoin walked on four straight balls.
Bases loaded, two outs, scored tied 8-8 with Dylan Campbell at the plate. Campbell takes a strike for the first pitch, fouls the next pitch, and takes the next as a ball. Picher Carter Spivey, East Carolina's eighth pitcher of the game, throws his 19th pitch.
Campbell swings and it's a deep high fly down the right field line, OFF THE WALL single to score Melendez and give Texas the win.
This may be the most exciting game of the season showing one more time that level of calm and professionalism Texas Baseball shows under pressure.
Dylan Campbell and Douglas Hodo III both bat 3-5 and a home run each in the game. Eric Kennedy also went 3-5. Eight of the 10 players in the lineup scored.. What a Texas Fight!
Texas Baseball plays East Carolina in Game 3 Jun 12 (SUN) at 3 P.M. CT
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