Longhorns hoping recent history with UCLA repeats itself

But Bruins are not putting much stock in UT’s March sweep

LONG BEACH, Calif. — As it heads to California this weekend, Texas must bypass the locals if it wants to extend its baseball season.

It won’t be hard for the Longhorns (37-22), seeded second in the Long Beach regional, to find a scouting report for their first opponent, though.

Texas meets UCLA (30-25) on Friday evening in the opening game of the regional hosted by Long Beach State. UT hasn’t faced the other two teams at the regional since 2005 (San Diego State) and 2007 (Long Beach State), but is very familiar with the Bruins, whom the Longhorns swept early this season in a threegame series in Austin — 5-4, 5-2 and 10-5. It was the Longhorns’ first sweep since 2015.

This is the first time since 2014 that Texas has met a regularseason opponent in the NCAA Tournament.

“They’re probably a different team now, just like we are,” UT first baseman Kacy Clemens said. “We know who we’re up against. We have the scouting report, so hopefully we can execute like we did when we played them (in Austin).”

‘It was so long ago’

That March series gives Texas easy access to film of the Bruins. Earlier this week, however, the Longhorns weren’t putting much stock in those wins. In fact, senior outfielder Zane Gurwitz struggled to recall much about the sweep. That was 41 games ago.

“To be honest, I can’t remember at this point,” Gurwitz said. “It was so long ago. Too many games in my past; I can’t remember them all.”

Texas has gone 25-16 since that series. The Longhorns were not ranked at the time, but were 19th in D1Baseball.com’s national poll this week.

The Longhorns traveled to Oklahoma City last week for the Big 12 tournament. Seeded sixth, Texas reached the championship game by besting higher-seeded Oklahoma (8-4) and TCU (9-3) as well as Kansas (5-4).

UT dropped a 6-5 decision to Oklahoma State in the Big 12 tournament finale on Sunday. It was Texas’ 23rd one-run game this season; the Longhorns are 8-15 in such games.

Kingham-Canning rematch

UCLA was 6-8 after that March series, but the Bruins recovered in time to grab one of the last four at-large bids for the NCAA Tournament. UCLA, which has won six of its last eight games, has made three trips to the College World Series since 2010.

“We know now it’s time to go,” Gurwitz said. “If we don’t show out, then we won’t be playing. Everyone is really starting to understand that.”

Led by junior righthander Griffin Canning — a possible first-round pick in this month’s MLB amateur draft — UCLA has a 3.49 staff ERA that ranks 19th in the country. (Texas is ninth at 3.20). In Texas’ 5-4 win on March 10, Canning, who allowed six hits and three runs through seven innings, and Texas’ Nolan Kingham, who gave up one run and five hits through six innings, both received no-decisions.

Canning and Kingham are the projected starters for Friday’s rematch.

If Texas gets out of this regional, it would advance to play the winner of the Stanford regional in next week’s super regionals. The Longhorns went 1-3 in a four-game series at Stanford the week before the UCLA series. Two of those losses were decided after the eighth inning.

“When we play right, we can beat anybody in the country,” said Texas pitcher Morgan Cooper, who earned third-team honors on Collegiate Baseball’s AllAmerica team on Thursday. “It’s exciting because we’ve played all those teams. It’s going to be fun.”