Texas Baseball’s Season Comes to an End with 8-1 Loss to Dallas Baptist

DALLAS, Texas — Dallas Baptist starting pitcher Cory Taylor tossed a complete game and left fielder Justin Wall provided six RBIs to knock the Texas baseball team out of the NCAA Tournament, 8-1, Sunday afternoon in an elimination game at Horner Ballpark.

The Longhorns (30-27) fell behind 4-0 in the top of the third inning and never managed to get much of anything going off of Taylor (7-1), mounting just three hits and one run on the day. The complete game was a career high in innings for Taylor and his nine strikeouts marked a season high.

In front of a ballpark record crowd of 3,242, DBU (44-14) also received an outstanding performance from Wall who went 3-for-3 with six RBIs, including a three-run home run in the third inning that pushed the early lead to 4-0. Camden Duzenack and Daniel Salters also had three hits each, with Duzenack scoring four times in the game.

Ty Culbreth (4-5) started for Texas and put up two shutout frames to begin the game before being roughed up for four runs in the third that included the three-run homer. He was pulled after the third, ending his day with four runs (all earned) on five hits and a walk while striking out four.

Four Texas relievers followed including Kyle Johnston, who worked 2 2/3 innings with just one run while striking out four. Tres Barrera provided the lone RBI for the Horns offensively with a run-scoring single in the sixth inning. He finished the day 1-for-3 with a walk.

After Culbreth worked two scoreless frames, the Patriots exploded for four runs in the top of the third before an out was recorded. The inning began with back-to-back doubles to make it 1-0, and a single put runners on the corners for Wall, who deposited a 3-1 offering over the wall down the right-field line for a three-run home run.

Culbreth recomposed from there, inducing a fly out to left and two strikeouts to halt the rally, but not before DBU held a 4-0 advantage.

Connor Mayes entered for Texas in the fourth inning and worked a scoreless frame, but ran into trouble in the fifth and sixth. Wall once again provided the brunt of the damage, lifting a sacrifice fly in the fifth and driving an RBI single in the sixth.

The lead then extended to 7-0 when reliever Travis Duke allowed an RBI knock to Salters, the first batter he faced after entering the game with two down and runners on first and second.

Texas bounced back for a run in its half of the sixth courtesy of a two-out RBI knock up the middle fromTres Barrera, but then with runners on first and third Taylor was able to get Collin Shaw to pop out to end the frame.

The DBU lead was then pushed back to seven  in the top of the eighth when Wall once again delivered an RBI, this time a single to right to make it 8-1 and give him six runs driven in on the day.

Taylor finished it off from there, grinding out two more scoreless frames while tossing a career high 133 pitches.

POST GAME NOTES

• The loss today knocks Texas out of the NCAA Tournament, ending its streak of four consecutive regionals won that they appeared in (2009-11, 2014).

• Texas finishes the season 30-27, the 16th time in the past 17 years that they have won at least 30 games.

• The loss to the Patriots today ended a 10-game winnings streak for the Horns against DBU, with the last loss coming April 1, 1997. Texas still leads the all-time series 46-8, with all 53 meetings before today coming in Austin.

• For the first time in the past seven games, UT failed to score first, falling behind 4-0 in the third inning today. The Horns finished the season 22-7 in games that they scored first.

• With another double play turned today, Texas finishes the season with 55 (third in the Big 12)

• Three of the five runs Texas scored in the regional came with two outs, making it 124 of the 265 (46.8%) runs on the season with two down.

• Joe Baker's nine-game hit streak came to an end with an 0-for-3 effort today, but he did score the lone run for Texas after being hit by a pitch and coming around to score in the sixth inning.

• Zane Gurwitz was hit by a pitch in the ninth inning, extending his reached-base streak to 14 games.

• Brooks Marlow finished his career by recording six assists in today's contest, moving him into second in UT history with 665, passing Bill Bates (660) and trailing only Spike Own (679).

• Tres Barrera finished the season reaching base safely in 51 of 57 games after having a hit in both games of the regional.

• Ben Johnson finishes the season with 26 multi-hit games out of his 56 games played