Texas Baseball: Longhorns Knock Off Arkansas
HOUSTON, Texas – Texas Baseball scored six runs in the second inning and never looked back, beating Arkansas 8-7 in the Shriners Hospitals for Children College Classic on Saturday night at Minute Maid Park.
The Longhorns (10-1) jumped out to an 8-0 lead over the Razorbacks (7-2) and held off a late rally, with freshmen relievers Pete Hansen and Andre Duplantier II finishing off the game.
Ty Madden improved to 3-0 with his third quality start, pitching six innings and allowing three runs on six hits. He struck out seven batters for the third-straight weekend.
Hansen came out of the bullpen into a jam in the seventh and got the Longhorns out of it. He finished with 1 2/3 scoreless innings pitched with two strikeouts. Duplantier gave up two runs in the ninth inning but struck out two batters and earned the save.
Zach Zubia had a three-hit and three-RBI day at the plate, while Austin Todd was 2-for-5 with two runs scored and one RBI.
Texas scored two unearned runs in the first inning after Todd started the game with a single. Eric Kennedy reached on an error to put two runners on and Zubia drove in the first run of the game with a single to left. A groundball double play allowed Todd to cross the plate and make the score 2-0.
The Longhorns exploded for their biggest inning of the season, plating six runs in the bottom of the second inning to take an 8-0 lead. The inning started with three-straight singles from DJ Petrinsky, Silas Ardoin and Douglas Hodo III to drive in the first run.
After Brenden Dixon walked to load the bases, Todd drove in another run with an RBI groundout and Kennedy followed with a sacrifice fly to right field.
Zubia delivered the big blow in the inning, smashing a two-run homer to deep left-center field. The homer was Zubia's second of the season.
One more run came across in the inning after Cam Williams and Trey Faltine both singled to keep the inning alive. Williams came around to score the eighth run on an errant throw.
Arkansas got a run across in the fifth after a leadoff walk and a two-out RBI single. The Razorbacks scored two more in the sixth to trim the Longhorns' lead to 8-3.
Two more Arkansas runs came across in the seventh off of reliever Cole Quintanilla to make the score 8-5. Hansen got the Longhorns out of the jam without any more damage done.
Arkansas made things interesting in the ninth, scoring two runs off of Duplantier before the freshman struck out a pair of batters to end the game.
UP NEXT
Texas and Missouri will play on Sunday at 3 p.m. in the teams' finale at the Shriners Hospitals for Children College Classic.