BASEBALL: Corvallis Regional Preview - Meet the TCU Horned Frogs
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This week, we are previewing the Corvallis Regional, a double-elimination opening round of the NCAA Division I Baseball Tournament, hosted by #8 national seed Oregon State.
Today, our focus is on the TCU Horned Frogs. How did they get here?
In February, they got off to a hot start.
On Valentines Day, TCU began their season with a four game road sweep of San Diego. The 23rd team in D1Baseball’s preseason poll followed that up with a neutral site win (at the Texas Rangers’ Globe Life Field in Arlington, TX) over Michigan, before dropping back-to-back games against #3 national seed Arkansas and Kansas State. Kirk Saarloos’ squad finished up the month with a win over #16 national seed Southern Miss.
In March, the Big 12 schedule started slow
A 5-4 opening to the Big 12 schedule now looms large for the Horned Frogs. A home series loss vs Arizona State (which featured a 26-9 shellacking), and a one-run defeat in a Saturday game at Texas Tech, hurt their postseason resume. By the end of the month, they were unranked.
Notably, TCU flashed an ability to come from behind: a win over Houston on March 30th marked their 13th comeback win through 29 games.
In April, they gradually got their act together
TCU began the month with sweeps of conference foes BYU and then 22nd-ranked Kansas, and wrapped the month with a series win over Baylor. While they dropped two games to UCF and suffered a narrow extra-innings loss to mid-major maestros Dallas Baptist, it was clear that the Horned Frogs turned a corner.
By the end of the month, they had won a solid two thirds of their conference games, with a 14-7 record.
In May, a series loss at Arizona offered a silver lining
Arizona locked down the Big 12 regular season title by beating TCU twice in early May. But Horned Frogs’ fans left that series loss with a couple strands of optimism.
In the first loss, TCU batter Sawyer Strosnider hit his 8th triple of the season. In the following night’s defeat, he hit his 9th triple, tying a school record for triples in a single season.
The following weekend, a walk-off win vs Cincinnati secured another series victory: this season, the only conference foes to take a series from TCU were Arizona State, UCF, and Arizona.
In TCU’s opening game of the Big 12 Tournament, Strosnider broke the Horned Frogs’ record for triples in a season. The following day, they mercy-ruled Kansas 11-1 in 8 innings to advance to the championship game, where they fell once again to Arizona, 2-1 in 10 innings.
On the season, TCU are 39-18 overall, thanks to a 19-11 Big 12 record. They finished 18th in the NCAA’s RPI rankings, a factor in their postseason seeding. They begin the Corvallis Regional Friday at 12 PM PST against the USC Trojans.
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Matt fell in love with radio during his college days at Oregon Tech, and pursued a nine year career in sports broadcasting with Klamath Falls' and Medford's highest-rated sports radio stations. He currently lives in McMinnville wine country and is excited to talk about the Beavers again.