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Kansas
No. 7 Baseball falls in series finale at Kansas, 4-2
04.23.2011 | Baseball
April 23, 2011
LAWRENCE, Kan. - The No. 7 Texas Longhorns fell behind in the fourth inning and were unable to make up ground in a 4-2 loss to the Kansas Jayhawks at Hoglund Ballpark on Saturday afternoon.
The Longhorns were unsuccessful in their attempt to sweep the three-game series from the Jayhawks and fell to 30-10 overall and 13-5 in the Big 12. Kansas improved to 20-20 overall and 9-9 in the league action.
The Jayhawks pounced on the Longhorns early when Brandon Macias hit the third offering from Sam Stafford over the leftfield fence for a lead-off home run.
Texas knotted the game at 1-1 in the fourth inning when Erich Weiss hit a lead-off home run over the 16-foot wall in centerfield.
Kansas responded with a pair of runs in the home half of the fourth to reclaim the lead, 3-1. Zac Elgie hit a leadoff single and Jake Marasco was hit by a pitch to start the inning. After Casey Lytle laid down a sacrifice bunt to put both runners in scoring position, Kendal Carrillo came in from the bullpen to relieve Stafford. With Alex DeLeon batting, Carrillo uncorked a wild pitch to allow Elgie to score and Texas catcher Kevin Lusson allowed a pitch to pass by bringing Marasco home.
Texas cut the lead to 3-2 with a run in the top of the fifth. Brandon Loy was issued a walk to start the inning, moved to second on a sacrifice bunt by Mark Payton and scored when Weiss bounced a single up the middle.
The Jayhawks added an insurance run in the bottom of the sixth inning. With Josh Urban on the mound for Texas, Marasco laced a leadoff single through the left side of the infield and Lytle drew a walk. Hoby Milner relieved Urban and yielded a bloop single to rightfield by DeLeon. Marasco scored when Jordan Dreiling bounced into a 1-4-6-3 double play to give Texas a 4-2 advantage.
Weiss led the Texas offense going 2-for-4 with one run, one home run and two RBI. Weiss hit safely in his 12th consecutive game, the longest streak by a Longhorn this season. Walsh registered a pair of hits in four at-bats.
DeLeon paced Kansas offense with three hits. Marasco scored two of the four runs.
Stafford (5-1) was saddled with the loss for Texas. He allowed three runs on three hits and one walk while striking out two over 3.1 innings.
Tanner Poppe (2-4) earned the victory for Kansas. He allowed two runs on seven hits and two walks while striking out three over 5.1 innings. Scott Heitshusen retired both batters he faced in the sixth inning, including one strikeout. Wally Maciel yielded one walk on 1.0 inning of work and Colton Murray faced six batters in the eighth and ninth inning to earn his seventh save of the season.
TEXAS POST-GAME QUOTES
Head coach Augie Garrido
On today's game: Sometimes two teams play well, but only one team wins. That's what happened today. We hit balls hard. We hit four balls that they had to run to the warning track to chase down and the snagged some line drives. So it wasn't a matter of us not striking the ball well. And we got our bunts down and ran the bases well enough to get people in position to score. I'm never happy when we lose, but today I can't fault our guys with the way the played. Kansas was just able to come up with more runs than we did today.
On Erich Weiss: He continues to hit well. He kept us in the game with his bat today. He's a very mature batter for a freshman and seems to learn from every at-bat he takes.
Freshman third baseman Erich Weiss
On his home run: It felt like a home run off the bat. I got a good pitch to hit and was able square up on it. If you hit it over that wall in centerfield, you know hit it well.
On his 12-game hit streak: I had no idea. I try to start every day fresh. Coach tells us to start each day with a clean slate, so that's what I do. I guess right now I'm comfortable at the plate and swinging at good pitches.
Junior shortstop Brandon Loy
On the loss: It's a tough loss, but we know it's going to happen from time to time. We played well. They played well. If we won every game that we played well in we'd have more than 30 wins and I'm sure if they won every game they played well in they would have more wins than what they have. Every game has a winner and a loser.
