Trust bringing swagger closer

Augie Garrido has new-look Texas riding six-game win streak.

You’d have thought Augie Garrido had just come from the Lost and Found Department.

He found himself a new closer Friday night, even though most didn’t know he had misplaced the old one, much less replaced him.

He found a rock-solid defense that turned in one sterling play after another to keep his Texas baseball team in the game.

He found himself with a club that may be even more mentally tough than he’d thought. The proof came in the form of Jacob Felts’ triple in the fourth and his game-winning single in the eighth inning to produce a 3-2 win over Hawaii as Mark Payton slid to avoid the tag at home.

“Our motto is doing something you don’t like to do,” said Felts, a threeyear starter at catcher who’s been relegated to a reserve role and occasional designated hitter. “If it’s not tough, we don’t want to do it.”

Texas knows tough situations.

Now after the Longhorn program dripping in tradition had lost its swagger after two consecutive years without appearances in the NCAA playoff field, Garrido’s found his equilibrium and a whole lot of momentum with a team that won its sixth in a row with terrific pitching and defense and clutch hitting before a crowd of 4,915 at Disch-Falk Field.

“They are proving to themselves that they can trust each other,” Garrido said. “They know they don’t have to play perfect. We had some imperfections in the first inning, but we didn’t come apart. Trust is a powerful word.”

And the 10th-ranked Longhorns are finding they can rely on all sorts of components to pad an 11-3 record by not giving in against talented senior Matt Cooper, who threw a three-hit shutout at Pepperdine and who hadn’t allowed an earned run all year.

Not even a 2-0 deficit in the first inning, when Hawaii parlayed an error by first baseman Kacy Clemens and a walk into a promising rally on a pair of RBI singles by Juliene Jones and Jordan Richartz, would deter the Horns.

Hawaii’s first two batters reached base and scored, but none of the next 32 came close. Only one Rainbow Warrior advanced as far as second base as ace Parker French kept Hawaii (6-7) at bay despite a lack of overall command. And redshirt sophomore John Curtiss continued his comeback from elbow surgery for his first save in two years and third of his career.

There will likely be more where that one came from because Garrido has Curtiss penciled in as his closer du jour after seeing him retire the last two batters of the game with a strikeout and fly ball with two men on. Because newcomer Lukas Schiraldi has struggled as the third starter, Texas plans to return senior Nathan Thornhill to the starting rotation in to-