Baseball run-rules Baylor behind Cooper’s complete game

Thursday, May 26

Oklahoma City, Okla.

12:30 p.m.

University of Texas

23-32

Baylor

24-29

Texas

Baylor

Baseball run-rules Baylor behind Cooper’s complete game

05.26.2016 | Baseball

Box Score

Texas pounded out 15 runs to stay alive in the Phillips 66 Big 12 Championship

Box Score | Championship Central

OKLAHOMA CITY—Righthander Morgan Cooper went the distance for his first career complete game and Texas Baseball staved off elimination from the Phillips 66 Big 12 Baseball Championship with a 15-3 win over Baylor on Thursday afternoon at Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark.

Like they did on the Wednesday night, the Longhorns got on the board in the top of the first inning. Tyler Rand took the first pitch of the ballgame into left for a base hit. After the Baylor starting pitcher made several pickoff attempts, Rand advanced to second when one got away from the Bears first baseman.

With one out in the frame, Travis Jones ripped a single to left-center to score Rand and put the Longhorns up 1-0. After a pop out, Kacy Clemens followed with his first of three hits on the day to score Jones and Patrick Mathis drove a 1-1 pitch to deep left-center for an RBI triple.

Unlike Wednesday, however, Texas would not relinquish the lead. In the third, the Longhorns tacked on four runs thanks to a three-run shot by Tres Barrera—his sixth long ball of the season—that was immediately followed by a Kacy Clemens solo homer to dead center.

Staked to a 7-0 lead, Cooper dealt for the Longhorns. In the game, the redshirt sophomore gave up a couple of runs via sacrifice flies and allowed a solo home run, but that would be it for the Baylor offense.

After opening the fifth with a triple, Bret Boswell came in to score on a wild pitch to give the Longhorns an 8-1 lead.

Baylor picked up its second and third runs in the fifth and sixth frames, but the Longhorns put the game away in the top of the seventh.

Boswell opened the seventh with a walk and Jake McKenzie added a one-out single to put runners on first and second. After Zane Gurwitz walked with two outs to load the bases, Jones singled up the middle to plate two and make it 10-3. Barrera just missed his second homer of the game when he blasted a ground-rule double to left-center to score Gurwitz and put Texas up 11-3.

Kacy Clemens followed with an RBI single to make it 12-3 before Patrick Mathis unloaded on a 2-0 pitch for his sixth home run of the season, a three-run shot that made it 15-3.

The Longhorns will next play the loser of No. 2 seed Oklahoma State and No. 3 seed TCU tomorrow at 7 p.m. CT in another elimination contest.

POSTGAME NOTES
•   Texas improves to 7-10 against Baylor in conference tournament action, to 2-2 this season against Baylor and to 36-26 all-time in Big 12 Championship games.
•   Texas is now 15-5 when collecting 10 or more hits in the ballgame.
•   The Longhorns put up 7 runs in the 7th inning, all with two outs in the frame…it was the third time Texas run-ruled it's opponent this year (also April 24 at Texas Tech and April 16 vs. Kansas).
•   For the first time this season, all nine Longhorns starters hit safely in the game.
•   Gurwitz finished the ballgame 1-for-3 with two runs scored…in 10 career Big 12 Championship games, Gurwitz is batting .485 (16-for-33) with 10 runs and five RBI overall.
•   This was Tres Barrera's second straight multi-hit game and 11th of the season…it was also his team-leading ninth multi-RBI effort.
•   In the third, Barrera and Kacy Clemens hit back-to-back homers…it is just the second time this season that the Longhorns have hit consecutive home runs…the only other time came on April 9 at K-State when Kody Clemens and Travis Jones went yard.
•   Barrera and Patrick Mathis both hit their team-leading sixth home runs of the season…Clemens' solo jack was his fifth of the year…prior to this season, Clemens had recorded just one home run in two seasons (86 games) at Texas.
•   Jones' 3 RBI and Barrera's 4 RBI match their season-highs while Mathis' 4 RBI are his most this season.
•   Barrera is now 5-for-9 with 6 RBI through two games in the Big 12 Championship.
•   It was the third time in his last four starts that Morgan Cooper allowed three runs or less while throwing at least six innings…the seven-inning effort was Cooper's longest career outing and his first career complete game at Texas…he finished the ballgame on just 85 pitches, 70 for strikes.
•   This was Texas' second complete game of the season after senior LHP Ty Culbreth threw a seven-inning complete game of his own against Kansas on April 16.