No. 16 Baseball walks off with 4-3 win over West Virginia in 10 innings

Friday, March 13

Austin, Texas

6 p.m.

University of Texas

12-6, 1-0

West Virginia

7-7, 0-1

West Virginia

Texas

No. 16 Baseball walks off with 4-3 win over West Virginia in 10 innings

03.13.2015 | Baseball

Box Score

Connor Macalla delivers walk-off sac fly; Parker French works career-high nine innings

AUSTIN, Texas -- With runners on first and third and one out in the bottom of the 10th, Connor Macalla delivered a sacrifice fly to center that scored Brooks Marlow and gave the No. 16 Baseball team a 4-3 walk-off victory over West Virginia to open Big 12 play Friday night at UFCU Disch-Falk Field.

Macalla, a redshirt freshman making just his sixth career plate appearance, swung at an 0-1 offering and lifted it deep to center field which allowed Marlow to tag up and score easily. Marlow had led off the inning with a double and moved to third on a fly-out by Bret Boswell.

The win lifted Texas, which got a huge performance from starting pitcher Parker French, to a 12-6 overall record, including 1-0 in the Big 12.

French went a career-high nine innings and struck out seven, one shy of his career high, while allowing three runs (two earned) on seven hits and a walk.

The senior induced three double plays along the way and retired nine straight batters in the third through fifth innings, before errors and two singles cost him two runs in the sixth. However, the right-hander grew stronger over the final three frames, allowing just a walk and a single to the final 11 batters he faced. He ended his career-high ninth inning on a 1-6-3 double play, shutting down a potential Mountaineer rally.

Marlow and C.J Hinojosa, who both had solo homers in the sixth and the seventh innings, respectively, to tie the score at 3-3, carried the offense on the evening.

Hinojosa went 2-for-4 with a homer, a triple, two RBIs and a walk, and Marlow had a double, a long ball and two runs scored, including the game winner. Ben Johnson (.438) added a double and a run scored to continue his hot hitting.

Kirby Bellow (1-1) relieved French in the top of the 10th, retiring all three batters he faced, and the UT run in the bottom of the inning gave the senior his first career victory.

The Mountaineers (7-7, 0-1 Big 12) had a lead of 1-0 after a two-out rally in the first inning and a 3-1 advantage after a two-run sixth, but each time Texas fought back.

The Longhorns tied it up at one apiece with two outs in the bottom of the third inning, courtesy of a Hinojosa RBI triple that drove in Johnson.

West Virginia grabbed the lead back in the top of the sixth thanks to some sloppy defense from Texas and timely hitting. A leadoff infield single and a throwing error from Hinojosa on the same play gave the Mountaineers a runner in scoring position to begin the frame. Then, on an attempted bunt to third base, Bret Boswell made an errant throw that allowed one run to cross and put another runner in scoring position. Following a ground out to first that advanced the runner, a line drive single over the head of Marlow from Brad Johnson extended the WVU lead to 3-1.

The Longhorns wasted little time bouncing back however, as Marlow, the leadoff man in the bottom of the sixth, worked a 10-pitch at bat, depositing the final offering into the Texas' bullpen in right field for his third homer of the year.

UT used the long ball again to tie the score at 3-3 in the bottom of the seventh. This time, it came off the bat of Hinojosa, who launched a 1-0 pitch out over the left-center field fence for his first bomb of the year.

Neither team could push a run across in the ninth, and the teams moved to extra innings tied 3-3. Bellow replaced French on the bump for UT, and worked a three-up three-down frame to give the offense a chance to win it in the bottom half.

Marlow led off the bottom of the 10th with a ground-rule double down the right field line and moved to third on a Boswell flyout to the right fielder. Pinch-hitter Kacy Clemens was hit by a pitch, bringing up Macalla, who delivered the walk-off sacrifice fly.

Blake Smith (2-1) took the loss for the Mountaineers, tossing 2 2/3 of relief (2 ER) for starter Connor Dotson, who gave a solid effort for the first six innings, allowing five hits, three walks and two runs while striking out one.

The teams meet again tomorrow at 5 p.m. from UFCU Disch-Falk Field in game two of the three game series.

QUOTES

Head Coach Augie Garrido

On their performance: The rally in the bottom of the 10^th was set up by the quality of at-bats all the way from the time we got behind. We hit the ball really hard tonight. We did a very good job throughout the game. That's one of the tough things about baseball, to keep your spirits in tact and keep your competitive spirit, to manage that when there is so much failure, like the ball hit at the second baseman, some of those things like that, that you just can't prevent. The hitter does a good job; the defense does a better one. There is an element of luck that affects both sides.

But to come out with a win, this is what I talk about all of the time; you can't get mentally tough enough until you play these kind of games. You can't understand the importance of every pitch until you play these kind of games, because now you look back on it and our first baseman went inside and didn't come back to the bag, one thing like that was two runs. So this is how you learn, but its much more effective when you play the game and it is that difficult and it is that competitive and it is that meaningful and win, because it breaks your heart when you lose and you have left everything out there and you lose, and that happens too.

On some of the hitters who have struggled coming around tonight: To really be a championship type team we have to have more than five hitters in the line up that can produce at any given moment. All of them are capable but every year this is the way it starts: about half of them are doing great and half of them are doing lousy. Then all of the sudden, in the middle, as you go on, the gap just closes between them. But I feel confident that we are very close to having the line up that we will be using. Kacy [Clemens] made his presence felt tonight with a real quality at bat. He could have swung at those balls outside the strike zone and that could have been a whole different issue. The other thing is that he is a very experienced first baseman.

On Parker French: He was very efficient I would call it, because he wasn't fired up, he was very well balanced in between innings. He dealt with his disappointments the same way he dealt with his success. He just came in, got ready to go back out and he was very workman like in his performance, very steady.

On Connor Macalla: He has been here about a year and a half now and last year he could hit the ball like that, it just didn't go very far because he wasn't very strong. He put a lot of work in during the summer and playing in the summer league and just came back absolutely determined to make this line up in some way, shape or form.

Senior RHP Parker French

On his pitching and what was working so well: I think it was a little bit that they didn't know what pitch was coming, so that's kind of nice, to be able to pitch and them not know what's coming. I think I spotted it pretty well the whole game.

On his slider: Yeah, it was really good tonight. I thought it was probably the best stuff I've had all year, probably the best stuff I've had in my career probably outside of coming out of the bullpen. It was good to see, good to get swings and misses on that, get some strike outs.

On the energy: Yeah there was. I don't mind pitching in that situation, when there is a lot of high energy and high stakes. I kind of thrive in that situation; I am kind of used to it in my career so it was fun. Really fun game.

On how big the win is for momentum: It's huge, it's really huge, it kind of reminds me of last year against Baylor when Mark hit that walk-off, you know momentum definitely builds on our side. Tomorrow is a new day. We have to come to the ballpark like it's opening day and just go have fun with this series and go and compete hard.

Freshman DH Connor Macalla

On his big hit: It was fun, I felt like I was in a movie. I was tuned into the pitcher, I heard the crowd chanting, it was awesome. Got it in my hotspot and I tried to get it in the air and it worked.

On working hard to be here: Well I found out two years ago about this day, I got an email from [Director of Baseball Operations] Drew Bishop that asked if I wanted to play baseball at Texas and how do you say no?

On the win: It's great, it's great to get started on the right foot. It's always good to get a win to start the season off.

Notes

- The win tonight was UT's second walk-off victory of the season and second extra-inning win. Texas' other walk-off victory came against UTPA (Feb. 25) when Bret Boswell singled in Collin Shaw, and its other extra-inning win came at Rice (Feb. 15), with the Horns prevailing 4-3 in 10 frames then as well.

- Ben Johnson (.438) was 2-for-5 on the evening with a double and a run scored. The junior left fielder currently leads the Big 12 in hits (35), batting average (.438) and total bases (53).

- Senior Kirby Bellow earned his first career win in 30 1/3 career innings pitched, by working a 1-2-3 top of the 10th before Texas walked off in the bottom half.

- Redshirt freshman Connor Macalla's walk-off sacrifice fly was also his first career run batted in, in just his sixth career plate appearance.

- The Longhorns hit two home runs tonight, and have now hit nine home runs in their last six games (13 total this season).

- The come from behind win was UT's fourth of the season (UTPA Feb. 25 and Rice Feb. 13 and 15).

- Texas is outscoring its opponents 46-10 from the seventh inning on this year (2-0 tonight).

- Two of the offense's four runs were scored with two outs on the evening, giving them 53 of 101 (52.5%) runs scored on the year with two down.

- Two Texas runs were scored when the leadoff man reached safely, making it 75 of 103 (72.8%) runs on the season when the leadoff batter gets on.

Tres Barrera's (.323) reached-base streak of 18 games dating back to last season, ended tonight with a 0-for-5 effort.

- Sophomore Kacy Clemens recorded his first plate appearance of the season tonight (hit by pitch).