Texas flames out at Big 12 baseball tournament but still hopes to land an NCAA regional
ARLINGTON — In his postgame press conference Thursday, Texas baseball coach David Pierce remained consistent in his feelings about whether the Longhorns should host a regional in the NCAA Tournament next week.
Last weekend, after Texas had swept West Virginia to win a share of the Big 12's regular-season championship, Pierce made the case that the conference's top-seeded team always should host one of the NCAA's 16 opening regionals. He repeated his stance Monday during a media availability.
So it wasn't much of a surprise that nothing had changed for him after his top-seeded Longhorns were eliminated from the Big 12 Tournament in Thursday's 6-0 loss to Kansas State at Globe Life Field, the day after they opened with a 6-3 loss to Kansas.
"I just have always said that if you're the one-seed in the three- or fourth-best league, whatever you want to call it this year, in the country, the (conference) tournament should never hurt you. If anything, it helps you, maybe solidifies it," Pierce said. "I know the committee's got a tough, tough job, and they do a great job. I just feel that in my heart that I really believe that our league deserves that. We'll see what happens."
Texas will find out Sunday when the 16 regional hosts are announced; the entire NCAA Tournament field will be revealed Monday. In Thursday morning's D1Baseball projections, the Longhorns were slotted as a No. 2 seed in the Stanford regional.
Working against the Longhorns is their 38-20 record and an RPI that dipped to No. 28 after Thursday's loss. History also doesn't completely back Pierce's viewpoint since TCU was last year's outright conference champion and the Big 12 Tournament's top seed but was sent to College Station for the regional.
Kansas State coach Pete Hughes didn't endorse Texas after Thursday's game but did say that "I think there's at least two teams in our (conference) that should be hosting." Like Texas, West Virginia and Oklahoma State went 15-9 in Big 12 play. And like Texas, the Mountaineers were eliminated on Thursday as well after their 3-2 loss to the Cowboys.
Texas, of course, could have made things easier on itself with a better showing in Arlington. But the Longhorns went 0-2, culminating with Thursday's letdown.
Facing Kansas State right-hander Ty Ruhl, Texas was held without a hit until Mitchell Daly led off the fifth inning with an infield single. That would be UT's only hit against Ruhl, who entered the game with a 5.79 ERA over 25 appearances. In his second start of the season, Ruhl allowed three walks and hit a batter over a five-inning, 92-pitch outing.
"They earned it today; we did not," Pierce said. "We had a poor approach offensively. I felt like going into it, we had to get after Ruhl because we knew we'd see Neighbors late."
Indeed, after Ruhl was pulled, the Wildcats turned to reliever Tyson Neighbors, an All-Big 12 first team pick. The Longhorns, however, didn't need the conference's coaches to tell them how good of a pitcher Neighbors is. Back on April 8, he struck out eight of the 11 batters he faced during a 6-5 win in Austin.
This time, Texas still couldn't figure him out. Neighbors pitched four innings, allowed one hit and three walks, and registered eight more strikeouts.
After the game, Hughes said that Neighbors was not feeling well. It also was shared during the broadcast that Ruhl was vomiting between innings.
"That's what we do at K-State: We just battle," Ruhl said.
Kansas State scored the day's first run on a first-inning single, but the Longhorns were just looking at a 1-0 deficit when the seventh got underway. By the time those at Globe Life Field participated in the seventh-inning stretch, though, the Wildcats' lead had ballooned to six runs. They compiled four hits and drew two-bases loaded walks against four UT pitchers in the seventh.
Texas never truly threatened the Wildcats after that implosion. One of UT's season-low two hits was an eighth-inning single by Dylan Campbell, which extended the outfielder's hitting streak to 35 games. He and Oklahoma State's Ty Wright, who went on his record run in 2007, now share the longest hitting streak in Big 12 history.
Texas' offense ended the regular season on a red-hot romp, scoring 71 runs over its five beatings of San Jose State and West Virginia. But in their two days in Arlington, the Longhorns were limited to 11 hits. Thursday's shutout was the second of Texas' season and its first since a 3-0 loss to then-No. 1 LSU in late February.
"We just did a bad job of making adjustments," senior outfielder Eric Kennedy said. "I think that's what we did a great job of (against) West Virginia. We were able to change pitchers and change our mindset and change our adjustments really quickly, whereas the past couple of days, we kind of just kept making the same mistakes and didn't do a good job of adjusting."
Key play: cause for concern over Shaw
During the seventh inning, David Shaw departed in the middle of an at-bat with an elbow injury. After the game, Pierce did not appear optimistic about Shaw's outlook but said the bullpen's leading left-hander will get an MRI in Austin.
To add insult to injury, Shaw was charged with his 14th walk of the season after he left the game. Charlie Hurley inherited a 3-0 count and a bases-loaded situation when he replaced Shaw, but Shaw was officially responsible for the walk after Hurley's first pitch was a ball.
That bases-loaded walk gave Kansas State a 2-0 lead.
A new look for Texas at third base
Notable number: 51. Texas' Peyton Powell made his 51st start of the season. He was used as a designated hitter for only the second time, though. Normally the Longhorns' sure-handed third baseman, Powell left Wednesday's game with a back injury and was not used in the field a day later.
He went 0-for-3 with a walk.
With Powell limited, freshman Jalin Flores started at third. He actually opened the season as UT's starting third baseman, but he had recently found a home at shortstop. The shifting of Flores led to Daly's 47th start at short but his first since May 7.
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Kansas State sends Texas home from Big 12 baseball tournament
