Texas baseball is back where it belongs

By Steve Habel, Senior Contributing Writer

AUSTIN, Texas — Hosting an NCAA baseball regional at UFCU Disch-Falk Field come the dog days of spring each season used to be the norm in the years Texas was one of the preeminent programs in the nation.

That standard has returned in 2018, and the NCAA has returned, too, as the Longhorns (as the nation’s 13th-seeded team) will host Texas Southern, Indiana and … ahem … Texas A&M this weekend in the Austin Regional.

The Longhorns, the region’s top seed, will battle Texas Southern, the Southwestern Athletic Conference champion and region’s fourth seed, in the second game of Friday’s opening doubleheader at approximately 8 p.m.

Texas [s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level2)]and Texas Southern met earlier this year in Sugar Land, with the Longhorns coming away with a 10-2 win.

Game 1, at 4 p.m. Friday, will match up second-seeded Indiana of the Big 10 versus Texas A&M of the Southeastern Conference. The Longhorns and Aggies also met this year, in College Station, with the Aggies winning, 6-5. Texas and Indiana never have previously met.

The regional is a double-elimination format, with the winner of the opening contest advancing in the winners’ bracket and the loser falling to the losers’ bracket to play an elimination game. Play in the regional concludes when three of the teams have lost twice.

“This is a great field,” Texas coach David Pierce said Thursday. “We’ve got four very good teams representing three Power 5s. Texas A&M had a great postseason tournament. Indiana is a very quality team that can really pitch and play defense. They’re have a very balanced, powerful lineup.

“Then, when you look at Texas Southern, who we were matched up with down in Houston, this is a team that is a little different from the SWAC team you’ve seen in the past. First of all, they’re older. They’re very physical and they can run. So they are a very qualified four seed.”

Texas (37-20) is coming off a two-losses-in-two-days performance at the Phillips 66 Big 12 Conference Championship last week. The Longhorns came out a bit flat in Oklahoma City after they won the Big 12 regular season crown after sweeping TCU the previous weekend.

“Coming out of the Big 12 Tournament, we got stomped,” Pierce said. “We didn’t show up, and we lost our edge, which is one of the reasons I feel like we didn’t execute. So that was our first message to the team this week — regrouping and understanding that the strength of our team is the team itself. It’s the unit. Every piece has to be doing their job, which we didn’t. So getting back to ownership and focusing on their individual jobs and coordinating that as a team.”

Texas Southern (27-26) captured its second consecutive SWAC baseball title last Sunday with a 18-3 win over Grambling State. The Tigers are making their third NCAA tournament appearance in four seasons.

“The key for us is to understand in our first game that there are three good teams in this region, and we can not overlook the first game,” Pierce said. “That’s been the message. It’s not about trying to do more than what we can, or what we’re capable of. That’s not who we are. So getting isolated on what you do best and building off of that.”

The Longhorns will send Chase Shugart (4-3, 4.73 ERA in 16 appearances, 13 of them starts) in Friday’s first game.

Shugart said Thursday that the ley to his success would be to be able to trust himself in the strike zone with runners on base and letting the Texas defense do its work behind him.

“Texas Southern is an aggressive team on the base paths and aggressive in the batter’s box, so being able to pitch and control my game is what I plan on doing,” Shugart said. “Me being able to mix up the runner’s timing is going to be huge tomorrow night and a key for our defense.

“I need to attack the zone and paint (the corners of the plate), and not pay too much mind to the runner, but still know he is there and that I have to give different looks and timing in different situations.”

Last season, Texas traveled to Long Beach State and went up 2-0 with wins over UCLA and Long Beach State before dropping two to the Dirtbags to end its run.

Texas opened 2018 with a 9-9 record but has gone 28-11 since. Its Big 12 title is the first for the Longhorns since the 2011 season, and the Longhorns’ 78th overall conference championship, with eight of those in the Big 12.

Disch-Falk Field hasn’t hosted a regional since the 2011 season, a campaign that ended with a College World Series appearance for Texas.

The Longhorns hosted nine regionals between 2000 and 2011 (a list that includes the 2007 tournament that was at Dell Diamond), and went 7-2 in those matchups and advanced to Omaha in four of those seasons, winning a national title under the late Augie Garrido in 2002.

On Thursday, Texas second baseman Kody Clemens was selected to both the Baseball America and Collegiate Baseball All-America first-teams, making him the first Texas position player to earn such honors since 2007.

Clemens, who was also the Big 12 Player of the Year, said Thursday that playing on their home field would be a huge advantage for the Longhorns this weekend.

“It’s big, obviously, to be able to play on your home field,” Clemens said. “The younger guys and the JUCO guys that have played in an environment like this, such as LSU and at Texas A&M, I think they have a feel of what’s going to happen out here. So having our home crowd and packing the Disch is going to be a lot of fun.”

This regional marks the Longhorns’ 58th all-time appearance in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

Texas has not participated in a Super Regional since the 2014 season, when it hosted Houston. That is also the last year the Longhorns reached the College World Series in Omaha. The 2018 NCAA regional is also the seventh of Pierce’s seven-year career as head coach but it marks his first as the host institution.

“Anything can happen,” Pierce said about the regional and about playing Texas Southern. “We just want to make sure that we’re not pressing or trying to do too much. The main thing that I told them is that we’re going to be us. We’re going to do what we do, and that’s when we’re good.” [/s2If] [s2If !current_user_can(access_s2member_level2)] [article-offer] [/s2If]