Week off may help Horns refocus
It has been a rough threeweeks for Texas, which has lost 7 of 11.
A break to rest, refocus and readdress its fundamentals couldn’t have come at a better time for the Texas baseball team.
Over the past three weeks, the Longhorns have lost seven of 11 games, dropped three straight Big 12 series and fallen from first place to fifth in the conference standings. But there was no sense of desperation late last week around the Texas clubhouse.
“We’ve put the last few weeks behind us and moved forward,” senior center fielder Mark Payton said. “We’ve struggled a little here recently, but everyone has kept a positive attitude every day. ... We are focused on getting back to the things that we were doing right when we were winning earlier in the season.”
Texas has one Big 12 series left — this weekend, in Manhattan, Kan. — but before that will host Texas State on Tuesday in the final home game of the regular season.
The Longhorns haven’t played since their 126 loss at West Virginia on May 4.
“We are going to be ready to go on Tuesday, and it’s almost like starting a new season,” Payton said. “School is out now, the weather is warming up, and it’s time for us to crank this thing up a notch. We have to be ready to accept the challenges that are in front of us.”
Part of the down time was spent on final exams and wrapping up the academic semester. The Longhorns have also been able to tend to some nagging injuries that have affected their play through the final third of the season.
Kansas State (24-28, 4-17) was the conference’s preseason favorite but has struggled.
The Longhorns (34-15, 11-10) are coming off arguably their worst showing of the season — and really only one of two games over their last three Big 12 series that they didn’t give themselves a chance to win.
“We’ve lost games, but we haven’t lost our spirit or our confidence,” coach Augie Garrido said. “We aren’t having any clubhouse problems that are leading to us losing games. The players rec- ognize that we have been in just about every game.
“We have every reason to be optimistic. Almost every game we’ve lost has come down to one clutch hit here or there. We are looking at the glass as half full, and there is plenty left to drink.”
Despite its recent swoon, Texas is still ranked 20th in the USA Today Coaches Poll and still among the top 15 nationally in RPI and strength of schedule.
The Big 12 — with No. 6 Oklahoma State, No. 19 TCU, No. 20 Texas and No. 23 Texas Tech — is ranked second among the nation’s conferences behind the SEC, which has seven teams ranked (No. 8 South Carolina, No. 9 Vanderbilt, No. 10 LSU, No. 13 Florida, No. 14 Ole Miss, No. 21 Missis- sippi State and No. 22 Alabama) and probably will qualify nine teams for the NCAA postseason.
Garrido said that junior pitcher Dillon Peters, who missed his start atWest Virginia, and designated hitter Madison Carter (who has suffered from a strained oblique) will be at or near 100 percent for Tuesday’s game and will be available for the weekend series at Kansas State.