San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Rivals’ 374th meeting is most important yet
Had the Aggies and Longhorns met in the middle to settle this baseball squabble, they’d have mixed it up for nine innings on Lexington High’s ball field and perhaps afterward broke bread at the famous Snow’s BBQ.
Instead, Texas A&M and Texas will play their most celebrated baseball game a little more than 800 miles north of their respective necks of the Texas prairie at 1 p.m. Sunday in Omaha, Neb. When the grass blades settle at Charles Schwab Field late Sunday afternoon, one of the state’s two most prominent universities will press on in the College World Series.
The other will pack its bags and head home, the sting of exiting the CWS exacerbated because a despised rival had done the exterminating. Ideally for the Aggies and Longhorns, they’d be colliding in the CWS after winning their opening games. They are not.
A&M, the No. 5 national seed and the second-highest seed remaining among the eight teams, lost to former Big 12 foe Oklahoma 13-8 on Friday in the CWS opener. No. 9 UT, which spent a chunk of the early season ranked No. 1, lost to Notre Dame 7-3 in Friday’s second game.
Losing by a combined nine runs wasn’t how these two former Southwest Conference and Big 12 rivals drew up their respective CWS starts, but both realize good things can still happen — providing they vanquish the other.
“It’s going to be huge for our fan base,” UT coach David Pierce said of the programs’ 374th meeting in baseball. “(Our players have) downplayed it — and they should. We can’t get caught up in playing Texas A&M. We have to keep it about us, and do our prep.
“They’re a good team, but it wouldn’t matter if it was A&M or whomever. It’s just a game that we’re playing for our … baseball lives.”
The teams are competing in the 75th CWS, and both now have the odds stacked against them no matter Sunday’s outcome. Twelve teams have rebounded to win a national title after losing their opening game, meaning both the Aggies (42-19) and Longhorns (47-21) have about an 84 percent chance of not hoisting a trophy to cap an otherwise solid season.
“We have to find a way to win one game and worry about (all else) after the fact,” A&M firstyear coach Jim Schlossnagle said. “There have been all kinds of different stories in the College World Series for many, many years. We can either cower down and put our tail between our legs and go back to College Station, or we can fight.
“My money is on our guys fighting.”
Oregon State in 2018 was the last program to win a national championship after losing its opener, and Texas was the first in 1950, the first year the CWS was held in Omaha after two years in Kalamazoo, Mich., and one year in Wichita, Kan.
Texas has the edge in experience when it comes to Omaha, both of late and historically. The Longhorns, who’ve won six national titles, are competing in the CWS for a record 38th time, 13 more than second-place Miami. UT also played in the CWS as recently as a year ago, winning three straight games against Tennessee, Virginia and
Mississippi State, bookended by losses to eventual champion Mississippi State.
Texas won more games in the CWS last year than A&M, which last visited Omaha in 2017, has in its history. The Aggies are 2-13 overall in the CWS after Friday’s loss that marked their ninth straight setback in Omaha.
The good news for A&M is Schlossnagle has a break-even history in Omaha at 11-11, including 11-10 while coaching TCU from 2004 to 2021. He said he’s fine with his players approaching the Texas game with extra incentive.
“If that’s what gets you going because you’re an Aggie and that’s what helps you grind and win pitches, that’s great,” Schlossnagle said. “Or if you’re playing the game and not paying attention to who’s on the other side, that’s fine, too. For me, I just want to keep playing, I don’t care who it’s against . ...
“At the end of the day, they’re playing for their season, and we’re playing for ours.”
A&M will turn to Micah Dallas, a transfer who beat the Longhorns last year while playing for Texas Tech. UT is led by slugger Ivan Melendez, who won the Dick Howser Trophy this season as college baseball’s top player. Melendez leads the nation with 32 home runs.
“It’s a really good offense over there,” Schlossnagle said, “that can bloody you pretty quick.”
A&M holds the upper hand in recent meetings, with three straight wins over UT, including a 12-9 slugfest in Austin on March 29 in a nonconference contest.
“It’s just another game, at the end of the day,” UT pitcher Tristan Stevens said of Sunday’s showdown. “Not a lot of teams like us anyway, so there’s nothing new with that. It’s just another game.”