The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
Baseball's journey ends in Omaha
06.22.2011 | Baseball
June 22, 2011
Natalie England, TexasSports.com
Even though Omaha is the destination -- a one-word rallying cry, if you will -- it's not the ultimate goal. The trophy is, and always will be.
The Texas Baseball program owns six national championship titles, but the Longhorns' NCAA record 34th trip to the College World Series ended Monday afternoon after just two games at TD Ameritrade Park.
"We didn't come here to be the first team to leave," shortstop Brandon Loy said. "You're never going to be satisfied, I don't think, unless you come out of here with a national championship."
However, if the 2011 version of the Longhorns learned anything, it's the value of the journey, and theirs might just have been typified in UT's first at-bat against North Carolina on Monday. Senior first baseman Tant Shepherd willed his way through a 10-pitch at-bat, before finally jumping into one and launching a liner into left field.
The white pellet found the left fielder's mitt before the outfield grass, and in the end, Shepherd's diligence is recorded as nothing more than an out in the scorebook. The persistence and solid contact only remain in the memory of the Longhorns, and define the arc of this season.
It started with the Longhorns seeking cohesion -- a "pretty scattered" bunch as coach Augie Garrido said -- and then they rolled into Omaha, Neb., as a unit securely banded together in battle.
The Longhorns defied elimination, and perhaps expectation, with three straight must-wins to advance out of the Austin regional, then pulled off the improbable again -- dropping the first game, then capturing the next two against Arizona State to win the super regional.
"We pulled it together and kept functioning like one (team) so we had the opportunity to come here," Garrido reflected after Monday afternoon's 3-0 loss to the Tar Heels.
UT carried 11 freshmen on its roster, and five of them played key roles on this year's team, including Jacob Felts, who was the backstop to America's best pitching corps, and Corey Knebel, the first freshmen to ever receive the NCBWA Stopper of the Year Award, given annually to the nation's top relief pitcher.
But Omaha's backdrop intensified the pressure. Garrido, the only coach to win CWS titles in four different decades, knows as much.
"My feeling, in being here a few times, is that until you've been here, it's harder to play here," Garrido said. "With these freshmen coming back, all who have the right attitude, the right talent and the right skill, the leaders of this team have given them an introduction to the College World Series."
Loy, though just a junior, was certainly a significant piece of the leadership group. His defensive wizardry and relaxed focus at the plate set the tone for the Longhorns. His competitive nature left him disappointed after UT's CWS exit, but Loy also has the maturity to understand what his team accomplished in 49 victories and 19 losses.
"It's definitely tough that we didn't walk out of here with a national championship," Loy said. "But what all we've fought through is the kind of stuff that I'm thinking about right now personally."
And the same goes for Garrido. No one likes to lose, but that didn't make Garrido any less proud of the team that played for him.
"You didn't see us overwhelm anybody with physical talent. It was about attitude and it was about their spirit," Garrido said. "They deserve to be proud of themselves."
