No. 2 Texas Longhorns Arms Dominate Oklahoma Series

Tuesday night in Houston, Texas, was a low point for the No. 2 Texas Longhorns, losing in a painful collapse to the Houston Cougars, 9-7, despite leading for the majority of the night.

The Longhorns bats were left effectively useless, garnering only three hits, with the only hit to produce runs being Ethan Mendoza’s double in the fifth inning. The rest of the runs scored came from loaded walks or other mistakes committed by the Cougars.

When Houston began to march back late, scoring nine unanswered runs, there was no one in the Texas batting order or the bullpen to come and save the day. Just one day of rest lay between the tough loss in Houston and a three-game series with No. 8 Oklahoma.

But as the Longhorns have done time and time again, they don’t hold onto losses for too long this season.

One Game Does Not Define a Team

Texas Baseball — Texas sophomore pitcher Dylan Volantis tosses a pitch at UFCU Disch-Falk Field in Austin, Texas. | Texas Athletics

Head coach Jim Schlossnagle said that he takes losses harder than his players, with some of them keeping him up at night. But for the Longhorns players, the “wash it off” and keeping an "opening day" mentality was in full effect against the Sooners.

“We definitely feel every loss, every game is the most important game. So when things don't go away, we definitely feel that,” Mendoza said. “You can't change the past. We did a good job with that this weekend. Our pitching staff looked really good, and let our offense put some good [at-bats] together and scored some runs.”

While every night cannot be the 14-0, seven-inning run rule that was the series opener, the Longhorns were tested on Friday and Saturday, falling from behind early before clawing back in extra innings to take a pair of one-run wins for the series sweep.

While the bats were tested, it was the Longhorns' pitching that rode them to their first conference sweep of the season.

Riojas has emerged as one of the best pitchers in all of college baseball, and the series opener on Thursday further cemented that as a fact.

The veteran pitcher threw for seven innings, a complete game, due to the night ending early with the run-rule. He tossed for an impressive eight strikeouts, walking just two batters and allowing six hits in the shutout victory.

With him pitching the entire game, Texas escaped from having to tap into the bullpen early, preserving its best arms for later in the series. It proved to be the deciding factor in the series against Oklahoma.

“We played well, pitching staff pitched well, we barely pitched any dudes,” Mendoza said. “Everyone was out there grinding, trying to win a single ball game. Then we did a good job of taking one game at a time, not looking too far ahead or looking in the past.”

Luke Harrison continued the long starts on the hill, eating up another seven innings and seemingly got better as he went deeper into his count.

While the bats were quietened due to the windy conditions on Friday, Sam Cozart, the first relief pitcher used for Texas, provided enough cushion for his bats to storm back.

“Luke [Harrison] did an incredible job, and then [Sam Cozart] backing up on the pitching and our offense just continue to fight,” Ashton Larson said on Saturday.

The same game plan occurred in the series finale, with another long five-inning start from Dylan Volatnis and pure dominance from Brett Crossland and Haiden Leffew down the stretch, leaving the Sooners desperately looking for a spark.

While it's going to be hard for Schlossnagle and pitching coach Max Weiner to expect these long starts from their starting pitcher in April or May, if anything was proven against Oklahoma, this is Texas’ recipe for a deep run to Omaha.

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