Staff report
One week after storming through the Big 12 tournament to earn an NCAA regional berth, the Texas Longhorns saw its 2015 campaign come to a stunningly quick conclusion.
A dominant complete game effort from pitcher Cory Taylor was the base for the Dallas Baptist Patriot’s 8-1 elimination game win over Texas (30-27) Sunday.
With the loss, Texas was eliminated from postseason play in two straight games. It marks the first time since 1971 Texas has not won at least one regional game in NCAA postseason play.
The Longhorns began the weekend by taking on the Oregon State Beavers in the Dallas regional opener Friday.
But a go-ahead RBI double scored by Oregon State’s Kyle Nobach overshadowed a late Texas rally as the Beavers claimed a 5-4 win.
Both teams were held scoreless for three innings before Texas took a 1-0 lead off of an RBI single from Tres Barrera in the top of the fourth frame.
Oregon State countered by scoring two runs in the bottom half of the fourth inning. The Beavers added a run in the fifth and the sixth innings to take a 4-1 lead into the seventh inning.
The Beavers compiled their damage off of Dripping Springs product Parker French, who gave up four earned runs on 11 hits over six innings of work.
Despite giving a high amount of ground ball hits, French said his stuff was good and that it was “the best it’s felt in a while.”
“That’s just baseball,” French said. “We didn’t make any errors behind any plates, solid defense, they just had more balls find holes than we did.”
French said the Longhorns had a “lot of good energy” and that the attitude and confidence was there.
“It’s just baseball is a funny game sometime, it knocks you down when you play well and have the right attitude,” French said.
But Texas responded in the eight inning when Brooks Marlow crushed a two out, two run home run to tie the game at 4-4.
Oregon State countered right back in the next half inning, as Nobach delivered the eventual game winning blow, forcing Texas to defeat Dallas Baptist to keep its season alive.
Not even a weather related postponement could keep Taylor from shutting down the Longhorns in Sunday’s elimination game.
Taylor limited Texas to one run on three hits over his nine innings, dominating Texas while tossing 133 pitches in the process.
Meanwhile, Patriot bats thrived on a depleted Texas bullpen that was forced to use multiple pitchers against Oregon State.
Dallas Baptist collected 16 hits off of five Texas pitchers. Longhorn arms were unable to hold Patriot left fielder Justin Wall, who went 3 for 3 with six RBI’s and a walk.
Marlow finished the weekend by going 2 for 6 with two RBI’s and a home run.
