The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
University of Texas
Texas A&M
No. 3 Baseball pulls out 2-1 win over Texas A&M
05.21.2005 | Baseball
AUSTIN, Texas -- Junior reliever J. Brent Cox (Bay City, Texas) induced a ground ball to third base with two outs and the bases loaded in the top of the ninth to preserve a 2-1 victory for No. 3 Texas (42-12, 15-10 Big 12) over Texas A&M (30-24-1, 9-17 Big 12) in front of 6,549 fans at Disch-Falk Field on Saturday, May 21.
After UT starter Kyle McCulloch (Houston, Texas) worked out of jam in the second inning, the Horns grabbed a 1-0 lead in bottom half of the inning as Carson Kainer (Tomball, Texas), who led off with his first career triple, scored on a two-out error. The Aggies would try to answer in both the third and fourth innings by placing a pair of runners on with one out each time, but McCulloch induced a pair of double-play grounders to end the threats. Seth Johnston (Boerne, Texas) then led off the bottom of the fourth with his eighth home run of the year to stake UT to a 2-0 advantage.
The game then continued as a pitcher's duel with McCulloch stranding four more A&M runners during his six shutout frames while Aggies' starter Jason Meyer and reliever Kyle Nicholson surrendered only one hit between the fifth and sixth. In the seventh, the Longhorns went to the bullpen where freshman Adrian Alaniz (Sinton, Texas) worked two 1-2-3 innings, which matched the effort of Nicholson in the same frames, to move the game to the ninth. Down to their final three outs, the Aggies rallied for the second night in a row by managing to place runners on second and third with two down via a pair of one-out singles and a groundout. Cox then came on and walked the first batter he faced, before A&M right fielder Andrew Baldwin came up with an infield chopper to cut the UT lead to 2-1 and keep the bases loaded. With the tying run now 90 feet away, Cox got Ryan Hill to hit a 2-2 pitch on the ground to third baseman David Maroul (Benbrook, Texas), who fired over to first base to record the final out and give Cox his league-leading 13th save. While McCulloch earned his ninth win of the year by striking out three over six shutout innings, Meyer shouldered the loss after allowing one earned run on two hits over 3.2 innings.
Leading the way offensively for the Longhorns were Johnston, who tallied his sixth game-winning RBI of the year with his round-tripper in the fourth, and Kainer, who accounted for two of UT's three hits on the night with a 2-for-2 performance that included a run scored. A&M's 11-hit attack, meanwhile, was paced by Baldwin, who went 2-for-4 with a RBI, and second baseman Parker Dalton, who collected three hits while also scoring one run.
