'We knew what was at stake': Texas beats West Virginia to set up a championship showdown

Back in 2018, Texas secured its Big 12 championship on the final day of the regular season. The same thing happened again in 2021.

This weekend, the Longhorns will attempt to make sure that history repeats itself.

Texas hit four home runs on Friday and rolled to a 10-4 win over No. 6 West Virginia at UFCU Disch-Falk Field. With the victory, Texas (37-18, 14-9) pulled to within a game of first-place West Virginia (39-15, 15-8) in the Big 12 standings. The Longhorns entered Saturday's regular-season finale locked in a second-place tie with Oklahoma State, which fell 5-0 at Oklahoma on Friday.

So the Big 12 won't crown a champion until Saturday. West Virginia has already staked a claim to the title, but will have to share it if Texas completes the sweep of a series that opened with Thursday' 12-2 win.

"It just shows how focused our team has been the first two games. We knew what was at stake and we still came out and handled our business," UT right fielder Dylan Campbell said. "We're gonna get some good rest tonight and then give it everything tomorrow. We know what's at stake, but we're gonna go into this next game the same way as we did the last two."

In the first inning, Campbell took advantage of an opportunity to show off his glove and bat, recording his seventh outfield assist of the season when he threw out a Mountaineer who had made a wide turn at first base after a single. A few minutes later, Campbell extended his school-record hitting streak to 32 games with a ground-rule double that also drove in UT's first run.

But the biggest ooh's and aah's from an announced crowd of 7,015 were saved for the fireworks.

Over the first two innings, Texas and West Virginia combined to hit four home runs. A solo shot by West Virginia's Landon Wallace in the first inning gave the Mountaineers an early advantage. Eric Kennedy, though, answered with a two-run blast in the inning's bottom half and Jared Thomas and Campbell both went deep in the second inning.

Texas exited the second with a 7-1 lead and eventually scored eight runs against West Virginia starter Blaine Traxel, who entered the game with a 3.23 ERA. After the game, UT coach David Pierce said that "our patience and discipline against Traxel was just off the charts."

"I feel like we had a good game plan going in," Campbell said. "We felt like he was going to try to trick us the whole game. We were just patient and got our pitches and just didn't miss him."

West Virginia made the Longhorns sweat a little by scoring twice in the final frame. But Texas secured the win behind a couple of nice plays at first base by Thomas and David Shaw's called strikeout of Wallace.

That strikeout sets up a day of drama in both Austin and Norman. In addition to a shiny trophy, seeding for next week's Big 12 tournament also will be decided.

If just Texas and West Virginia end up tied for first place, the Longhorns will be the top seed for that postseason competition. If there's a three-way tie involving Oklahoma State, that tiebreaker also goes to Texas since the Longhorns would have the best round-robin record among the three teams.

Key play: The pitcher of record for Texas on Friday was Lebarron Johnson, Jr. The third-year right-hander allowed five hits, two walks and two runs over 5⅓ innings.

Two of Johnson's 11 strikeouts were picked up during a key stretch in the third inning. After Texas had taken its 7-1 lead, West Virginia loaded the bases with no outs. Johnson then struck out Big 12 player of the year candidate JJ Wetherholt and Wallace — the second and third hitters in the WVU lineup — and ended up escaping the jam with only one run allowed.

"It felt good, but I just knew that I gotta keep going regardless of what happened in that inning," Johnson said. "It felt good for the moment but I just had to stay focused to finish the game."

Notable number: 30. Kennedy's first-inning homer was the 30th of his five-year collegiate career. He's the 11th player in UT history to hit 30 homers. Three members of that club — Ivan Melendez (45), Kody Clemens (34) and Zach Zubia (30) — are former teammates of Kennedy's.

Kennedy has hit a team-leading 16 home runs in his 211 at-bats this season. Over his first four years, he had 14 homers in 646 at-bats.

Up next: The probable pitchers for Saturday's showdown are Texas right-hander Tanner Witt (1-1, 13.50 ERA) and West Virginia left-hander Ben Hampton (5-2, 4.04). This will be Witt's fourth appearance since last year's Tommy John surgery, so he'll be on a pitch count before Texas turns to its bullpen. Last week against San Jose State, Witt threw 40 pitches over three innings.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas to play for Big 12 baseball title after beating West Virginia