The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
University of Texas
Kansas State
Baseball evens Big 12 series with 6-3 victory over Kansas State
05.04.2013 | Baseball
May 4, 2013
AUSTIN, Texas - Dillon Peters tied a career best with seven strikeouts Saturday as the Texas Longhorns evened its Big 12 series with the 6-3 win over the Kansas State Wildcats at UFCU Disch-Falk Field. The Longhorns took advantage of a season-high five errors by the Wildcats and never prevailed in the game after scoring twice in the first inning.
Peters gave up two runs on seven hits in 5 1/3 innings with a walk to improve to 5-3 on the season for Texas (24-21, 6-14) while Matt Wivinis (6-2) took the loss for Kansas State (33-15, 10-7) after giving up four runs (one earned) in 2 2/3 innings.
Erich Weiss went 2-for-4 with a double and two RBI for the Longhorns.
After Brooks Marlow led off the Texas first with a single, Taylor Stell laid down a bunt that Wivinis bobbled as Marlow made a heads-up running play to get to third when no one was covering. Mark Payton then hit a grounder to second to score Marlow and C.J Hinojosa would make a it a 2-0 Texas lead by singling home Stell.
With Payton on second in the bottom of the third, Hinojosa hit a grounder to third as Lance Miles' error allowed Hinojosa to reach safely. His errant throw was followed by Wivinis' throwing error while backing up the play to let Payton score with Weiss hitting an RBI single, scoring Hinojosa for the 4-0 lead. UT took the 5-0 lead in the fourth after Madison Carter tripled and scored on a fielding error by first baseman Shane Conlon.
Kansas State scored twice in the fifth and loaded the bases on Peters, who then induced a grounder from Blair DeBord to leave the bases stranded as Texas held on to the 5-2 advantage. Tanner Witt hit a ground-rule double off Ty Marlow in the ninth, but Marlow would retire the side to pick up his second save of the season.
The series concludes tomorrow with a 1 p.m. start that will be broadcast by Longhorn Network with radio on AM 1300 The Zone. Gametracker live stats will be available on TexasSports.com with live Twitter updates @Texas_Baseball.
Notes: Mark Payton has reached base safely in 34 straight games...Dillon Peters has allowed only four runs in his last five starts (37 innings).
KSU 000-020-010---3-10-5 TEXAS 202-100-10x---6-9-1
Records: Texas (24-21, 6-14), Kansas State (33-15, 10-7) WP - D. Peters (5-3) LP - Wivinis (6-2) S - T. Marlow (2) T - 2:52 ATT - 6,064
Wivinis, Flattery (3), Esquivel (7), Nixon (7), Witcig (8) and DeBord. D. Peters, Hollingsworth (6), Duke (6), T. Marlow (8) and Felts.
Post-Game Quotes
Texas head coach Augie Garrido
On the pitching today: The pitching has been the most consistent thing on the team. Once again, Dillon Peters went out and did a fine job with pitching. He got out and minimized the damage in the one inning by battling his way out of it. Every inning he had runners in scoring position, so that put a little more energy into every pitch throughout the game. He normally doesn't tire and a combination with the heat and the effort he had to make to get out of those innings because of the runners, that wore him down a little bit. We went to [Travis] Duke a little earlier than we thought we might have to, but Duke did a good job.
On forcing KSU errors with aggressive base running: It helps to get the leadoff hitter on and to get people moving. If you can start making some things happen and get some people moving, but you can't steal first, then it is a big problem. That is how we did it and that is how we would like to play. You saw in the innings where it didn't work. We would like to get the players moving, we would like to use the hit-and-run and we would like to use the bunting game, but it requires getting the leadoff hitter on.
On taking hope from this game late in the season: We have seen little spurts like this before where we saw signs of life and then it reverted back to comatose. We are going to take each day as it comes and hope we can build on this thing. I'm not a big expectation person. The biggest surprise of all is this is the first crowd that has cheered a losing team. I am thankful and it inspired the players.
Junior designated hitter Erich Weiss
On the pitches changing from yesterday: I just saw the ball and took the pitches they put out there. They threw strikes and I just took advantage of what they threw over the plate. I didn't chase any bad pitches and I waited on them to come over the plate. I recognized what the pitch was and hit it.
Sophomore pitcher Dillon Peters
On fighting through today: There were some jam jobs to get to the infield and some jam jobs up the middle. I think they hit one ball hard off of me today. I just have to keep grinding, and do what I can do to get the team in the dugout today. Some lazy hits fell for them and that hurt me in that inning. It's going to happen so you just have to pitch through it.
