UT reaches College World Series
Bocchi throws five clutch innings as Longhorns advance to Omaha
AUSTIN — Sunday afternoon, after Texas claimed Game 2 of its best-of-three super regional against Tennessee Tech, Longhorns coach David Pierce sat at the dais and batted away questions like he was in the practice cage. Asked three separate times, Pierce declared he had not decided on a starter for Monday’s winner-take-all Game 3 at Disch-Falk Field.
Chase Shugart and Blair Henley had just thrown 99 and 39 pitches, respectively. Nolan Kingham labored through 95 on Saturday, days after having a cyst removed. The man for the job, Pierce decided, was junior Matteo Bocchi, an Italianborn Odessa College transfer who, until a couple years ago, was unaware the College World Series existed. It was the right decision. Bocchi appeared unflappable, and Texas proved unassailable in a 5-2 win over Tennessee Tech. For the 36th time in program history and first since 2014, the Longhorns (4221) will play in the College World Series.
“He told me last night after the game, and I tried to stay calm,” Bocchi said. “I went to sleep at 8 last night, got a long night’s sleep to be ready for today.”
Quipped Pierce: “It was probably a good choice, because he probably didn’t quite understand the magnitude of it. ‘I’m from Parma, Italy. So what?’ ”
Bocchi represented Italy in the 2008 Little League World Series. He threw a nine-inning shutout for the Italian national team at the 2013 U-18 Baseball World Cup. This moment was bigger, even if he didn’t fully grasp it.
Pierce knew the righthander’s fastball “would play” if he could command it. And he did.
Bocchi painted the inside corner for a called strike three against leadoff hitter Alex Junior, part of a 1-2-3 first inning, and walked only one of 19 batters he faced.
Bocchi’s only real slip occurred in the fourth. Kevin Strohschein battered a leadoff double, and Trevor Putzig drove him in with a single to shallow right field. But Pierce got five innings of one-run ball from his starter, and that was more than good enough.
“As we looked at the plan, if I could get three (innings) out of Matteo, everything after that was a bonus,” Pierce said. “And we go through the fourth, and he’s still throwing quality pitches. We get to the fifth, we’re not changing it.”
Bocchi benefited from pitching ahead in four of five innings.
Big hit for Reynolds
Ryan Reynolds, mired in a 6for-37 slump (.162) and reassigned to the nine-hole, clubbed a two-run double into left-center field in the second to start the scoring. One inning later, Tennessee Tech starter Alex Hursey repeated the sins of his predecessors and gave Kody Clemens something to hit.
The ball soared of Clemens’ bat, a seemingly non-threatening fly to deep left. But everything coming off the All-American’s bat is a threat these days. The ball pushed back and back, propelled by serendipitous winds, and over the wall for a solo homer, his 24th of the season.
“Early in the game, right or wrong, we’re going to challenge guys, and he beat us,” said Tennessee Tech coach Matt Bragga, whose team finished 53-12. “When Hursey was in there early, the home run (Clemens) hit to left, we were just challenging him with fastballs hoping that he would guess for something off speed, but he didn't. He’s just an elite hitter, a good hitter. I guess you look back and say you can pitch around him, but hindsight is always 20-20.”
Clemens monopolized the spotlight as always, but Texas doesn’t live on without its other contributors. After some lineup shuffling, UT’s six through nine hitters on Monday collected seven hits and scored four runs. Catcher D.J. Petrinsky, hitting fifth, smashed a solo home run in the fourth, his third of the postseason. From the bullpen, Parker Joe Robinson allowed one hit over 22⁄3 scoreless innings, and Kingham recorded two gutsy outs with the bases loaded in the ninth inning to pick up his third save.
“He doesn’t ever get to start clean innings,” Pierce said of Robinson. “It’s usually bases loaded and nobody out. And if he has one out, we basically tell him, ‘Hey, this is a luxury for you. This is easy.’ But he’s just so cool, and the thing is he’s not trying to be somebody else. He does what he can.”
A few minutes after punching a ticket to Omaha, the Longhorns all congregated in center field, encircling the Longhorn ode to the late No. 16, Augie Garrido. More than 7,000 fans began chanting the late coach’s name while several players bowed their heads in reflection.
“It was kind of this crazy thing,” Clemens said. “We were celebrating his life just a couple months ago, and then almost right after he passed away, our team kind of flipped a switch. And I don’t know … maybe Augie was with us. And we all just played together for one thing bigger than baseball: Augie.”
He added: “This is the goal, and after today there’s only eight teams left — and we have unfinished business.”
Arkansas next
That business will begin with former Southwest Conference rival Arkansas, which beat South Carolina 14-4 on Monday to win its super regional.
The Razorbacks and Longhorns met twice in March in Fayetteville, Ark., with Arkansas (44-19) winning both games by a combined score of 20-9.