Killer Frogs

Big 12 Baseball Roundup: The Frogs and Mountaineers Shine in Week 9

The most interesting conference in college baseball continues to make waves.
Carson Wersal|
Mason Brassfield and Karson Bowen celebrate the series sweep vs No. 22 Kansas.
Mason Brassfield and Karson Bowen celebrate the series sweep vs No. 22 Kansas. | Brian McLean KillerFrogs/TCU on SI

Once again, Big 12 Baseball has remained one of the more interesting conferences in the nation. This weekend we saw series sweeps from league leaders and some attrition among the rest of the Big 12. Once again, Big12onD1Baseball does an excellent job recapping the weekend on Twitter/X.

The Weekend Recap

TCU and West Virginia were the two biggest winners of the weekend as they both swept their competition to remain near the top of the league standings. The Horned Frogs took all 3 games against a solid Kansas Jayhawks team, while the Mountaineers swept the Cougars in Houston.

The rest of the conference saw a little more parity in their weekend which featured series-deciding Game 3's in all other Big 12 matchups.

Arizona, Kansas State, and Utah came away with series wins this past weekend after losing their series-openers on Thursday/Friday. While Oklahoma State dropped the series, the Pokes stunned the Arizona Wildcats on Friday night as starting pitcher Harrison Bodendorf threw a 10-inning complete game in the 4-2 win for the Cowboys. The lefty only allowed 3 hits and 1 earned run while striking out 10.

The UCF Knights opened their series against Kansas State with an absolute beating as they defeated the Wildcats 15-3. Despite the lopsided loss, Pete Hughes and his squad stormed back to take the series with wins on Saturday and Sunday.

In the Holy War between Utah and BYU, the series saw an exciting 9-8 win for the Cougars on Thursday, but the Utah pitching staff would slow down BYU on Friday and Saturday just enough to come away with a series win.

Cincinnati and Texas Tech both picked up home series wins as the Bearcats took on the Arizona State Sun Devils and the Red Raiders took on the Baylor Bears. The series in Cincinnati saw an exciting conclusion in Game 3 as the Bearcats walked it off against the Sun Devils 9-8 for the series win.

The series in Lubbock saw another interesting conclusion after the Red Raiders took Game 1 by a score of 9-2, and the Bears jumped back into the series with an 18-4 win on Saturday. Texas Tech would win the series in Game 3 with a score of 9-8. Jack Cebert showed out once again in relief for the Raiders throwing 4.0 innings only allowing 1 earned run on 2 hits.

Big 12 Conference Standings

Big 12 School

Conference Record

Overall Record

1. West Virginia

10-3

30-4

2. TCU

11-4

28-9

3. Arizona

10-5

25-10

4. Kansas State

10-5

23-12

5. Kansas

9-6

27-10

6. Arizona State

9-6

23-13

7. Cincinnati

8-7

21-14

8. Texas Tech

7-8

11-21

9. Baylor

6-9

22-13

10. Oklahoma State

5-8

16-17

11. Houston

5-10

19-17

12. BYU

5-10

17-16

13. UCF

4-11

19-16

14. Utah

4-11

15-17

Biggest Takeaways from the Week

I had a couple of takeaways from this past week of Big 12 baseball. One pertains to a potential contender, and the other panders to my TCU faithful for the second week in a row. (Come on, they swept a good team I can't not be excited.)

Though we saw some moments of weakness from the Cincinnati Bearcats against Arizona and BYU, head coach Jordan Bischel and his squad have put together some solid weeks of college baseball. With the most recent matchup against Arizona State resulting in a series win, the Bearcats now sit in the top half of the conference standings with an 8-7 record.

While Cincinnati has likely the hardest remaining schedule in the Big 12, against teams like West Virginia, Kansas, TCU, and Kansas State, one should remember that this team was ranked early in the season after their series win against then #11 Duke. That series win isn't as impressive now with the Blue Devils unranked with a 24-14 record, but the Bearcats are still a good hitting team in a Big 12 that could get extremely interesting down the stretch.

Kerrington Cross headlines the Cincinnati lineup as he's solidified himself as one of the best hitters in the Big 12, if not the country. The right-handed hitter is batting a league-leading .424 on the season with 7 homeruns with 24 RBIs in 2025, including 27 walks on the season leading to his team-leading 82 total bases on the season.

For my second takeaway from the weekend results, I unfortunately have to self-report myself in regard to TCU's sweep of the Kansas Jayhawks. In last week's preview on the TCU on SI Bullpen podcast with JD Andress and College Baseball Central's own Noah Darling, I took the Frogs to win the series but not sweep.

Frankly, I was stunned by the TCU pitching staff and their ability to keep the power-driven Jayhawk offense at bay all 3 games. Friday night starter, Tommy LaPour, set the tone for the weekend allowing 1 run against Kansas in 7 innings. His start also included 11 strikeouts and only 3 walks as Frogball dominated the series-opener 14-1. The Frogs would then win a nailbiter on Saturday 4-3 with some stellar performances from Braeden Sloan and Kade Eudy out of the TCU bullpen.

The TCU Horned Frogs were able to complete the sweep by playing some complementary baseball. Caedmon Parker got the start for the Frogs and threw 4.0 innings only surrendering 2 runs with the sweep on the line. Parker showed some veteran experience by pitching out of some high leverage scenarios that could've resulted in Kansas taking a commanding lead early in the game.

Mason Brassfield came out of the bullpen in the 5th inning and continued to dominate the Kansas lineup striking out 7 in 5 shutout innings as TCU scored 7 runs in only 2 innings to take the series sweep. Jack Bell had another massive at-bat for the Frogs with a 2 RBI double in the 3rd, and Chase Brunson put the game out of reach with a 2-run homerun in the 8th.

The series sweep for head coach Kirk Saarloos and his team have TCU in 2nd place in the conference at 11-4 only behind West Virginia at 10-3, who's cancelled games at the beginning of conference play may become influential later down the stretch.

Upcoming Series to Watch

One of the most important series in the Big 12 this year is set to begin this weekend between Kansas State (10-5) and Kansas (9-6). That's right. It's the Sunflower Showdown, and it starts this Friday in Lawrence Kansas. The Wildcats are coming off of a series win against the UCF Knights while the Jayhawks are looking to bounce back after being swept by the Horned Frogs in Fort Worth.

Both teams, while they've had struggles in the last couple of weeks, are still fighting for the Big 12 regular season title with the Sunflower Showdown playing an important part in the league standings. Not only are there bragging rights on the line, but both teams have shown that they have the potential to make some major noise in the postseason making the series even more chaotic than in years past.

The last time the Jayhawks took the series rivalry was in 2021 making this season's series a must-watch this weekend.

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Carson Wersal
CARSON WERSAL

Carson, a 2025 TCU graduate, is a sports journalist who covers college athletics for several On SI sites. While most of his experience is with TCU On SI, he also writes with Wake Forest On SI and Houston On SI. He also has a passion for the college baseball scene, most notably being a fan of TCU Baseball. In 2023, Carson was in Omaha and reported on the Men’s College World Series, where TCU finished 4th in the nation. His past work not only consists of major sports like football, basketball, and baseball, but with others like track and field and cross country as well.

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