The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
University of Texas
TCU
No. 17 Baseball completes sweep to win Big 12 Conference title
05.19.2018 | Baseball
The Longhorns take home their first conference championship since 2011.
Box Score | Postgame Quotes
AUSTIN, Texas—With a three-game sweep of TCU culminating in a 7-3 win on Saturday afternoon at UFCU Disch-Falk Field, No. 17 Texas Baseball was crowned Big 12 Conference regular season champions for the first time since 2011.
The Longhorns (37-18, 17-7 Big 12) needed to complete the sweep on Saturday in order to take the championship and junior Kody Clemens, as he has done all year, got the team going.
In the bottom of the first, with David Hamilton on second, Clemens launched his 19th home run of the year over the center field wall to put Texas up 2-0. The long ball moved Clemens to a third-place tie with Kyle Russell and Brooks Kieschnick for most home runs in a single season. The homer also gave Clemens the Big 12 Conference regular season home run title.
TCU managed to tie things up off Blair Henley but Kamron Fields entered to escape a bases loaded jam and preserve the deadlock.
After Fields (1-0), who picked up his first career win in the game, got out of the fourth, the offense immediately answered. Masen Hibbeler doubled off the wall to open things up before Ryan Reynolds singled in the gap to plate him. DJ Petrinsky then tripled off the wall in dead-center to score Reynolds and Texas lead, 4-2. After a groundout, Jake McKenzie drew a walk to put Longhorns on the corners. David Hamilton then ripped a single to score Petrinsky to make it 5-2. Duke Ellis then followed with a two-run single to make it 7-2 and had the Longhorns a decisive advantage.
Fields would settle in and toss a career-high 3.1 innings. He allowed just two hits and two walks while striking out one. Behind Fields, Josh Sawyer allowed one run in the eighth on a solo homer before Andy McGuire threw a scoreless ninth to preserve the win.
Texas will next head to the Big 12 Conference tournament in Oklahoma City as the No. 1 seed set to face off against No. 8-seeded Kansas on Wednesday at 12:30 p.m. CT.
