San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Campbell’s heroics extend Horns’ season
Texas sophomore Dylan Campbell enjoyed silencing ClarkLeClair Stadium's boisterous sellout crowd so much the first time he decided to hit the “mute” button twice Saturday afternoon.
Campbell crushed a go-ahead solo home run in the bottom of the
eighth, putting No. 9 national seed Texas up 8-7 on eighth-seeded ECU in Game 2 of the Greenville Super Regional in North Carolina. One inning later, after the Pirates tied it up on a solo homer of their
own, Campbell drove a basesloaded walkoff single to deep right field, scoring first baseman Ivan Melendez and extending the Longhorns' season with a 9-8 win.
“Feels great,” Campbell told The Horn FM in Austin. “Glad we got the job done. That's just the ‘Texas Fight' that we're about. We were down early, down most of the game. Kept coming into the dugout just telling ourselves it's not over yet and we're not going out like this, and I got a good pitch to hit that last (at-bat) and happened to come through.”
The decisive Game 3 is set for 3 p.m. Sunday.
Texas (46-20) jumped out to a 2-0 lead for the second straight game. And just like in Game 1, a 13-7 ECU win, the Longhorns' offense went cold until the latter innings while working against an array of Pirates pitchers.
Longhorns lefty Lucas Gordon settled in after a rickety start, retiring
seven straight batters to preserve the 2-0 lead. ECU star Bryson Worrell rocketed a leadoff solo home run to left center field in the fourth to end that streak, but Gordon rebounded to end the inning with the lead intact, though it wouldn't last much longer.
The Pirates (46-20) exploded for five runs in the fifth. Worrell drove in two with a blistering double to left, chasing Gordon. Then outfielder Jacob Jenkins-Cowart
sent a three-run homer caroming off the outfield scoreboard with reliever Marcus Olivarez on the
mound, and when he scored on a seventh-inning wild pitch it pushed ECU's lead to 7-2.
And that, apparently, is right where Texas wanted the Pirates.
Shortstop Trey Faltine snapped out of his funk with a two-out double in the bottom of the seventh before trotting home on outfielder Douglas Hodo III's two-run shot.
After reliever Andre Duplantier pitched a scoreless frame, Texas second baseman Murphy Stehly and designated hitter Austin Todd started off the bottom of the eighth with a pair of singles. Then
Austin Regional MVP Skyler Messinger stepped into the batter's box.
In the four years he came to Texas, Messinger had toiled in relative obscurity in Lawrence, Kan.
But when he entered the NCAA transfer portal last offseason, teams all around the country came courting the 6-foot-3, 220pound infielder who'd hit a teambest .324 with 19 doubles and 39 RBIs as a senior.
Messinger, of course, signed with Texas. And on Saturday, with Stehly and Messinger aboard, he walloped a clutch
three-run homer to knot the game at 7-7.
After catcher Silas Ardoin's flyout, Campbell secured the lead with that solo shot to right field, the red-hot right fielder's fourth homer in five NCAA tournament games.
“Just staying in the middle of the field, staying on the baseball, and then guys passing the bat, not trying to force it,” Pierce said of Texas' timely offense. “Just putting the pressure on them.”
Second-year reliever Andrew Duplantier II came up huge, too.
He recorded the final eight outs for Texas, three on strikeouts, and Pierce stuck with Duplantier (3-1) even after second baseman Jacob Starling hit a game-tying two-out home run off him in the ninth.
Duplantier settled in and struck out ECU's final batter to set up Campbell's walkoff heroics.
“The heart of our team, the fight in our team was really exemplified today,” Pierce said. “You gotta love this team. And I love our chances tomorrow going into a Game 3.”