The No. 4 Texas Longhorns took the first two games and the series against the No. 11 Alabama Crimson Tide at home this weekend.<\/p>\n
Head coach Jim Schlossnagle shuffled the starting rotation after last week\u2019s series loss to the Texas A&M Aggies, moving sophomore starting pitcher Dylan Volantis to Friday and sliding senior pitcher Ruger Riojas and graduate pitcher Luke Harrison to Saturday and Sunday, respectively.<\/p>\n
The change worked, as Texas\u2019 pitchers combined for 49 strikeouts on the weekend, the program\u2019s most in a series since at least 2009. Still, Schlossnagle downplayed the rearrangement\u2019s impact.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re all three really good pitchers, I don\u2019t think there\u2019s any magic to (the order),\u201d Schlossnagle said. \u201cAll three of those guys can give us really good length.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the very least, letting Volantis lead the weekend helped put Texas\u2019 best foot forward.<\/p>\n
Volantis set the tone in his first Friday start, striking out a career-high 12 batters while allowing just two runs. Riojas followed suit, punching out 11 batters in just five innings of one-run baseball. Texas\u2019 staff combined for 19 strikeouts on Saturday, tying a program record for the most in a nine-inning game.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Riojas entered the game on the heels of two of his worst starts of the season and opened it by issuing a walk and then allowing a single and a run-scoring double. However, he managed to fight back to put together one of his best outings of the year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u201cThe hitters are paid to play the game too,\u201d Riojas said. \u201cBut I just kept on doing my job and wouldn\u2019t get away from the (coaches\u2019) main\u00a0 emphasis, which was dominating zones.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harrison also set a career high in strikeouts when he punched out his tenth batter to strand Alabama\u2019s loaded bases in the top of the sixth of Sunday\u2019s match. He set another career mark by throwing 106 pitches on the day.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Texas\u2019 bats failed to hold up their end of the bargain. After starting hot on Friday and doing just enough to squeeze out a win on Saturday, the Longhorns\u2019 lineup was all but blanked and accrued just four hits and one run in their first Sunday loss of the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cDefinitely a tough one to swallow,\u201d Harrison said. \u201c(I) felt like as a team we were in a good spot to come in today and complete the sweep, but that\u2019s baseball.\u201d<\/p>\n
Supplementing the starting pitching this weekend was an impressive Texas bullpen, which did not allow a hit all series. Freshman reliever Sam Cozart notched his fifth and sixth saves of the season, pitching the final three innings of Friday\u2019s game and closing Saturday\u2019s by striking out the side.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Texas\u2019 bats will look to get back on track Tuesday as they take on Air Force at UFCU Disch-Falk Field at 6:30 p.m.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The No. 4 Texas Longhorns took the first two games and the series against the No. 11 Alabama…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":257607,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-257606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257606\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/257607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}