The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
University of Texas
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Kansas
No. 12 Baseball preview: Phillips 66 Big 12 Conference Championship
05.22.2018 | Baseball
The Longhorns open the conference tournament as the No. 1 seed.
No. 12 Texas (37-18, 17-7 Big 12) at the Phillips 66 Big 12 Conference Championship
May 23-28, 2018
Where: Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark (Oklahoma City, Okla.) ?Time: Wednesday @ 12:30 p.m., Thursday TBD
TV: FOX College Sports
Radio: 104.9 The Horn, AM 1260?
Texas' all-time Big 12 Tournament record: 44-28
Texas' Big 12 Tournament wins (last): 5 (2015)
Complete Game Notes
?PROBABLE STARTING PITCHERS
WEDNESDAY—Kansas RHP Jackson Goddard (4-1, 4.50) vs. Texas RHP Nolan Kingham (7-2, 4.21)
GAME NOTES
THE MATCHUP—No. 12 Texas Baseball enters the Phillips 66 Big 12 Conference Championship as the No. 1 seed for the first time since 2011…the Longhorns will open up against the No. 8 seed Kansas at 12:30 p.m. CT on Wednesday.
A LOOK AT THE LONGHORNS—Texas is coming off a series sweep of TCU that gave the Longhorns the 2018 Big 12 Conference regular season championship…the Longhorns got a complete game out of RHP Nolan Kingham on Thursday night in the win and Kody Clemens hit two home runs on Friday night, one to tie the game at three and one to walk it off in the bottom of the ninth with two outs…on Saturday, Clemens opened the scoring again with his third two-run bomb of the weekend before Texas went on to win 7-3…the Longhorns have gone 7-1 so far in the month of May.
BIG 12 CHAMPS—The Big 12 title is the first for the Longhorns since the 2011 season…overall, Texas has claimed 78 conference championships, eight in the Big 12.
BIG 12 PLAYER OF THE YEAR—Kody Clemens capped off his regular season as the Big 12 Player of the Year, the league announced Tuesday…the Texas second baseman has hit .344/.437/.703 with a league-high 19 homers on the year to go along with 12 doubles, three triples, and 61 RBI in leading the Longhorns to the Big 12 title…he is the first Big 12 Player of the Year for Texas since Kyle Russell in 2007…Clemens' 19 homers on the year are the most since Russell's 19 in 2008…on Monday, he was also named a Golden Spikes Award semifinalist, which is awarded to the top amateur player in America.
BIG 12 COACH OF THE YEAR—Texas head coach David Pierce was named Big 12 Conference Coach of the Year on Tuesday after leading Texas to the Big 12 crown…it is the third time in his career that he's been chosen as conference coach of the year, picking up the honor twice in the Southland Conference while manning Sam Houston State.
ALL-BIG 12 HONORS—INF Kody Clemens was a unanimous All-Big 12 First Team selection while OF Duke Ellis and DH Zach Zubia both earned First Team honors…INF David Hamilton, RHP Blair Henley, and RHP Andy McGuire were each named to the second team while RHP Parker Joe Robinson was an Honorable Mention selection…on the All-Freshman Team, Zubia and UTIL Kamron Fields were honored…three is the most First Team selections for the Longhorns since 2011 (four).
THE COMEBACK KIDS—Texas has now recorded 17 come-from-behind wins this season, including five of their last eight ballgames…the Horns trailed 3-0 after the first inning on Friday and walked off the game after Duke Ellis beat out an infield single with two outs in the ninth and Kody Clemens followed with his 18th homer…in both wins over Texas Tech, the Longhorns had to rebound from a deficit…on May 1 vs. Texas State, the Longhorns trailed, 10-6, entering the 9th against Texas State when Masen Hibbeler and Duke Ellis led off with walks, Kody Clemens singled, and Zach Zubia walked to set up Hamilton's ninth inning heroics, a walk-off slam…it was the Horns' second walk-off homer of the season (Austin Todd on Feb 17 vs. Louisiana) and first walk-off grand slam since Preston Clark's against Army in the 2009 NCAA Regional.
THE DUKE—Sophomore OF Duke Ellis is riding a 15-game hitting streak in which he's raised his average more than 50 points from .255 to .309…in Big 12 action, the transfer finished 2nd in the conference with a .390 batting average (WVU Kyle Gray, .391) and first in on-base (.484).
ZUUUBOMB—Twice this season, Zach Zubia has hit a two-run homer to help clinch a Big 12 Conference road series…he first did it at Oklahoma and also did it in the Sunday rubber match against Texas Tech…the redshirt-freshman has upped his season average to .293 on the year…he and Clemens are the first pair of Longhorns teammates with at least 10 homers apiece since Cameron Rupp, Kevin Keyes, and Kevin Lusson all had double-digit dingers in 2010.
VROOM VROOM—David Hamilton has raised his average from .285 to .308 over his current eight-game hitting streak…he's also the first Horn with at least 27 SB since Drew Stubbs stole 28 in 2004…Hamilton leads the team with 9 bunt singles and 5 triples.
DEEEEFENSE—The Texas defense solidified since Big 12 Conference action began…the Longhorns fielded at a .981 clip over 24 league games, with position players making just 12 of the team's 18 errors…the Horns' .977 fielding percentage across all games is good for tops among Big 12 teams…as a team, Texas has also turned 63 double plays on the year, which ranks second in all of Division I.
RISING LONGHORNS—Texas currently finds itself ranked in all major Division I polls, including D1Baseball (12), Baseball America (14), Perfect Game (13), Collegiate Baseball (12), NCBWA (13), and USA Today (13)…the Horns also stand at No. 15 in RPI.
THE BACKEND—David Pierce has utilized a veteran trio to solidify the back end of the bullen…RH Andy McGuire, who was named to the All-Big 12 second team and who had not played baseball in each of the last two seasons, has led the Longhorns with seven saves…in front of McGuire is fifth-year LH Josh Sawyer, who also missed most of the past two seasons with injury including all of 2017…and in the mix is redshirt-junior Parker Joe Robinson who has navigated inherited runners masterfully this season.
WEEKDAY WINNERS—Over the past two years, the Horns went 23-5 in midweek games (non-weekend series matchups)…all five losses came away from UFCU Disch-Falk Field…in 2017, Texas went 12-2 with losses at Texas State and against Louisiana in Sugar Land…in 2018, Texas went 11-3 against midweek opponents with two losses on the road against Arkansas and one on the road at Texas A&M.
THE MIND OF MCKENZIE—Senior RHP/UTIL player Jake McKenzie was named to the Google Cloud Academic All-District team, becoming the first Longhorn to earn that distinction since John Curtiss in 2014…on April 17, he played all nine positions in Texas' seven-inning win over UTRGV on April 17…he started the game at catcher, the only position he had not previously played while at Texas, before moving through the infield and outfield…he then got the final two outs of the game on the hill…McKenzie was recognized on SportsCenter and on ESPN's "Get Up!" program in the "My Favorite Player of All-Time (Right This Second)" segment for accomplishing a feat that only five major league players have. …McKenzie, a petroleum engineering major, was recently awarded the Marvin Wright Student Athlete Award from the Cockrell School of Engineering and the Big 12's Dr. Gerald Lage Academic Achievement Award…he graduated last Friday with a 3.95 in petroleum engineering.
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