Longhorns’ bats go silent as they are eliminated
Texas bats go quiet vs. Florida ace
OMAHA, Neb. — Texas teetered on the edge, looking down at its own demise while simultaneously denying it.
Each time it verged on falling, some savior tugged it back.
Eventually, Texas ran out of saviors. Finally, it fell.
The Longhorns’ season came to an end with a 6-1 loss to top-seeded Florida in a College World Series elimination game Tuesday at TD Ameritrade Park.
“There’s nobody in this room and nobody in this country expected this team to be here,” Texas coach David Pierce said. “And they did a heck of a job from the start to finish, from the fall ball into early spring. The things that they had to accomplish to get here is incredible.
“And I can only say how proud we are as coaches and
the effort that they gave us and the way they represented the University of Texas.”
This loss ran almost parallel to Sunday’s 11-5 defeat to Arkansas. In both, the game was still a game through five innings. In both, gutsy and breathtaking plays were made to prevent one team from seizing a sizable advantage over the other. In both, Texas wilted in the sixth.
What Florida did to junior right-hander Chase Shugart and Texas in the top of the sixth on Tuesday wasn’t a replica of Arkansas’ eight-run explosion, but it was just as deflating. Maybe that’s because Texas had spent most of the gray afternoon denying the Gators an easy path to a repeat championship.
David Hamilton’s doubleplay-starting backhanded snag in the first inning prevented what might have been a catastrophic beginning for starter Blair Henley and Texas. The fact Florida managed only one run, on Jonathan India’s RBI single, felt like a win after Henley loaded the bases before recording a single out.
And Shugart, who entered for a struggling Henley with two outs in the third, managed to match Florida starter and 2018 first-round MLB draft pick Jackson Kowar strikeout for strikeout — for a time. At one point, Shugart and Kowar combined to retire 13 consecutive batters. Shugart struck out the first four Gators he faced and sat down seven straight to start.
Florida was still clutching a 1-0 lead heading into the sixth, and Shugart was still throwing better than he had at any other point this year. But Blake Reese slapped a lead-off double down the right-field line, and following two strikeouts and a walk to Deacon Liput, Nelson Maldonado singled up the middle to make it a 2-0 Florida lead.
Then India, the fifth overall pick in this year’s draft, stepped into the batter’s box. He turned on a high fastball, turned on it so fast it’s a wonder he didn’t suffer whiplash. Shugart didn’t bother to watch where the three-run home run landed.
Kowar wasn’t going to give up a 5-0 lead, not with his fastball touching 98 miles per hour, and not with his off-speed stuff dancing through the thick Nebraska air like a wiffle ball. Over 6 2⁄3 scoreless innings, the junior struck out 13, walked two and allowed five hits. He threw 121 pitches.
“He was 95, 96, commanded his fastball,” Kody Clemens said. “And then he had a really good changeup. Coming out of his hands it looked like a fastball to most of us. And he executed it really well.”
Florida outfielder Nick Horvath added one final tally on a solo home run in the top of the eighth. In the bottom half D.J. Petrinsky scored Austin Todd on an RBI single, but that was UT’s last breath.
After the game, Pierce, Clemens, Shugart and Jake McKenzie dutifully marched to the media interview. Clemens’ eyes were red and puffed. McKenzie held his tears back. Shugart looked in disbelief. But there was a resounding feeling of pride there, too. Plenty of it.
“When you see that development and the growth of young men like took place in front of us, hell of a good season,” Pierce said. “Our coaches, our support staff and our players, especially, have nothing to be ashamed of. There’s 290 teams that didn’t make it here. So when I look at the season and I recap it, I have no regrets with everything that happened with this group.”
Texas swept TCU on the final weekend of the regular season to claim its first Big 12 title since 2011, and first outright since 2010. It went 3-0 in the Austin Regional and staved off elimination twice in the Super Regional against Tennessee Tech’s juggernaut offense.
There were memorable walkoffs — David Hamilton’s grand slam against Texas State and Clemens’ two-run shot against the Horned Frogs, to name a few — and that time senior petroleum engineering major McKenzie played all nine positions in a win over UT-Rio Grande Valley.
And Clemens turned in a season for the ages, one Texas fans will memorialize for years. He evolved from “the son of Roger” into his own special entity, a bodacious home run hitter whom Pierce named “the best hitter in college baseball when the game is on the line.”
It was a team initially populated by strange faces and players in unfamiliar roles. It was not immediately clear how the pieces fit, or if they even did, especially after a 9-9 start. Turned out, they fit just fine.
“Honestly, this team was not physically put together as an Omaha team might be,” Pierce said. “When you look around, we’ve got some guys that completely grew up from freshmen that contributed on the mound especially, from (junior college) kids that came in.
“And this motivates you and this builds a culture of expectation from our program. And that’s the beauty of it. Their accomplishments were great, but what they’ve done for Texas athletics and Texas baseball is tremendous.”