No. 18 Baseball falls to A&M-Corpus Christi, 6-4, in 10 innings

Tuesday, March 31

Austin, Texas

6 p.m.

University of Texas

17-12

TAMU-Corpus Christi

12-12

Texas A&M - CC

Texas

No. 18 Baseball falls to A&M-Corpus Christi, 6-4, in 10 innings

03.31.2015 | Baseball

Box Score

The Longhorns overcame a 3-0 deficit to send it into extras, but the Islanders pulled away with three runs in the extra frame

AUSTIN, Texas — The No. 18 Texas baseball team rallied from a three-run deficit to Texas A&M-Corpus Christi to send the game to extras, but fell 6-4 in 10 innings Tuesday night at UFCU Disch-Falk Field.

A&M-Corpus Christi (12-12) scored three runs in the 10th inning off freshman Connor Mayes (1-1, 1.90 ERA), who had yet to surrendered a run in relief all year to that point, to earn the victory over Texas (17-12). Jacob Dorris (1-2) picked up the win for the Islanders after allowing the tying run to score in the ninth, but preserving his lead in the 10th inning.

Eight pitchers appeared in the game for the Longhorns, including starter Kyle Johnston who retired the first eight batters he faced before allowing back-to-back walks and a two out RBI single in his third and final inning of work.

Jake McKenzie (0.82 ERA) also allowed his first run of the season on a home run to Jordan Lee to lead off the sixth inning, and Ty Marlow spun 1 1/3 scoreless frames in his outing.

Joe Baker led the Texas offense with two hits, including a game-tying RBI double in the bottom of the ninth, and Big 12 hits leader Ben Johnson crushed his league-leading sixth triple leading off the bottom of the 10th inning.

Tres Barrera added a walk and a single, making it 28 of 29 games this season that he has reached base safely. Barrera also nearly tied the game in the bottom of the 10th down two with a man on, when he smashed a ball to deep left-center field, but it was caught on the warning track.

Cody Clarke had two hits and drove in two for the Islanders, Lukas Hermanson added two base knocks, a run scored and an RBI and Lee scored two runs including one on his homer. Lee's home run represented the first earned run allowed by the bullpen in 22 2/3 innings and gave the Islanders a 3-0 lead in the sixth.

The Longhorn offense came to life with two runs in the bottom of the seventh to make it a 3-2 game. With runners on the corners and one out, Bret Boswell delivered a single to center on the first pitch he saw from new pitcher Nolan Holland to put the Horns on the board. A fielder's choice put runners back on the corners, and a wild pitch allowed Barrera to score and make it a one run game. Holland, though, got Brooks Marlow to ground out to first to escape further damage.

Texas went scoreless in the eighth, but rallied to tie it in the ninth on Baker's RBI double that scored pinch runner Taylor Stell. Stell ran for Boswell after he drew a one out walk, and stole second before being driven in by Baker to tie the score at 3-3 and force the game to extras.

The Islanders grabbed the momentum right back in the 10th with two singles to begin the frame, and a strikeout and an intentional walk loaded the bases with one out for Justin Perales, who hit a groundout to second that allowed a run to score and make it 4-3. Clarke then blooped a single to right following an intentional walk that allowed two more runs to cross and make it a three run advantage.

The three runs off of Mayes in the 10th were the first he has allowed out of the bullpen all season (17 1/3 IP prior), and were the first runs he had surrendered since February 25 (15 innings pitched in that span).

Johnson attempted to rally the Horns from behind once again with a leadoff triple in the bottom of the 10th, and came home on an RBI groundout form Collin Shaw. Michael Cantu then walked, and Tres Barrera crushed a ball to the warning track in left-center with a man on and one out that looked like it might tie the game, but left fielder Jordan Lee made a tremendous running catch to dash the hopes of the Longhorns.

Texas returns to action this weekend with a three-game set at No. 11 Oklahoma State.

QUOTES

Texas Head Coach Augie Garrido

On team's performance: It was pretty easy to see the difference in their performance through the first six innings versus the last four innings. I think that's where you see the separation. You saw what was in there that wasn't coming out in the early innings. They got some timely hitting with the home run and three runs in the top of the tenth inning. In the seventh inning, there was a huge change and as coaches we see that as them really competing because the end of the game is near and they were behind. So they turned it up. We didn't get anything going the first six innings.

On lineup changes: [Brooks] Marlow has been comfortable for us at leadoff – he led off for us in that run at the end of last year – and tried to get him back to a familiar place. C.J [Hinojosa] can't control the bat and the two hole may get to him stop over swinging and get some bunts down so that was the thought behind that. Ben [Johnson] has been our most consistent hitter. Hopefully one of those two guys plus the nine hitter will get on.

On what he told the team: Basically what I told the team is that this is very painful and we'll sort through this and come back out with a plan that includes getting better and learning from what happened here.

Freshman Catcher Michael Cantu

On the loss: It's tough and never fun losing. We just have to keep grinding and rolling. This is baseball. Anything can happen. There are a lot of games left and we just have to string together better at bats and bring a lot of energy from start to finish. I think that was our big thing. We just need to bring more energy. It's there, we just need to pull it together and keep grinding. We have a big three-game series against Oklahoma State and that's all we can think about right now.