Less than 10 minutes after the Texas baseball team’s 9-8 loss Friday night to Ole Miss in its SEC opener at UFCU Disch-Falk Field, Jim Schlossnagle met with the media. But before his postgame news conference, the Longhorns’ coach had one thing to do.

As Texas opened the season with 16 straight wins, Schlossnagle had started to grow a mustache. Schlossnagle wasn’t a fan of his facial hair, and he even retorted on Thursday that “it’s not my favorite or my style.”

Schlossnagle had agreed to sport the mustache as long as the Longhorns kept winning. And since Texas dropped its first game of the season — which left USC (18-0) as college baseball’s last unbeaten team — the mustache was no longer needed.

“That party trick’s over,” Schlossnagle said while still in uniform.

Schlossnagle’s mustache was a casualty of a late-game implosion by the Texas bullpen against Ole Miss (16-3). The Longhorns entered the ninth inning with a 7-3 lead, but Thomas Burns hit two Rebels and walked another batter. Texas called Cal Higgins out of the bullpen and the Western Kentucky transfer induced a run-scoring groundout and foul-out before issuing the team’s second walk of the inning. With the bases again loaded, Ole Miss cleanup hitter Tristan Bissetta unloaded on a Higgins pitch and gave Ole Miss the lead with a 464-foot blast to right field.

Texas rallied to tie the game in the ninth inning, but more control issues later sealed the Longhorns’ fate. After Brett Crossland hit two Ole Miss batters to lead off the 11th, veteran reliever Max Grubbs allowed a single and a bases-loaded walk.

Texas entered Friday with a walk rate of 3.43 per nine innings, which ranked 36th nationally. The Longhorns had also hit the fourth-fewest batters in the SEC. In Friday’s loss, three of UT’s five walks and all four of its hit batters happened in the ninth and 11th innings.

“Two really good teams, a lot of great pitching, but the free bases (were) defining,” Schlossnagle said.

Texas was led offensively by Ethan Mendoza, Casey Borba and Anthony Pack Jr.,, all of whom homered. The Longhorns, however, stranded the potential winning run at second base in the ninth and 10th innings.

The Longhorns and Rebels will return to UFCU Disch-Falk Field on Saturday afternoon for the second game of their conference-opening series. En route to winning the SEC championship last season, Texas lost just two series.

“(We need to do) the same thing we’ve been doing all year. New day tomorrow,” Borba said.