Reflections on a championship season and what’s next<\/a><\/p>\nTexas needs one more win to join Ole Miss and become the second SEC team to clinch a CWS berth in the College World Series, which begins Friday. The two teams face each other again at 8 p.m. Sunday. Georgia, Oklahoma and Alabama also are a win shy of a trip to Omaha, and West Virginia, Troy and the Rebels have clinched CWS spots.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt like there were a lot of awesome bats all the way through the lineup,\u201d Schlossnagle said. \u201cAgain, we scored 11 runs without two of the best players in the country getting a hit, so if we can get them going tomorrow, I like our chances.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Texas didn\u2019t need a hit from Aiden Robbins and Carson Tinney, the top two in the batting order.<\/p>\n
But the Longhorns got a two-run blast from Casey Borba and a solo shot from Ethan Mendoza \u2014 the team\u2019s 13th and 14th home runs in just four NCAA postseason games \u2014 to trample the Ducks in the first meeting between these two.<\/p>\n
But it was the stout pitching, especially from Volantis and Harrison, that quelled a robust Oregon lineup.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of my regrets last year in the regional was not bringing Dylan in when we had a six-run lead (on UTSA), so I\u2019m not going to let that happen again,\u201d Schlossnagle said. \u201cI\u2019ve also watched guys like Augie (Garrido) and Wayne Graham and (Dave) Van Horn, the greatest coaches in our sport, how they use their bullpen and how they use their best pitchers in the biggest moments in a short series.\u201d<\/p>\n
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To nail down the first win in this best-of-three series, which continues at 8 p.m. Sunday, Schlossnagle called on Harrison, the graduate left-hander from Friendswood, who came on in the sixth in relief of Thomas Burns, who walked in two runs. Drew Smith knocked in Oregon\u2019s only other run with a solo homer in the eighth.<\/p>\n
The gamble to use the team\u2019s No. 2 starting pitcher paid off because he quieted the looming Oregon threat before Texas answered with three runs, two on Mendoza\u2019s blast way over the left-field wall.<\/p>\n
Besides, he threw only 27 pitches over his 1\u2153 shutout innings and will be ready to go as long as his team needs him if a Monday game is needed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is super cool to see Luke Harrison coming in that situation and just doing the job,\u201d Volantis said. \u201cHe\u2019s the most trustworthy guy you can ever ask for.\u201d<\/p>\n
Volantis has built up a ton of trust himself as a finalist for national Pitcher of the Year.<\/p>\n
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The Longhorn ace (10-1) suffered through rare command issues but was wildly effective. The sophomore left-hander dodged trouble all night long but made his best pitches in the clutch. He stranded 10 baserunners in the first five innings alone and left after 5\u2153 innings after walking four and giving up eight hits and two runs to allow his ERA to peek above 2.00 at 2.03.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t think he was sharp tonight, compared to other outings that we saw,\u201d Wasikowski said. \u201cYet he gutted it out. He showed the makeup that a true warrior shows so I really credit him. To still be able to go zeroes with high-stress inning.\u201d<\/p>\n
Oregon, meanwhile, didn\u2019t get the best out of starter Cal Scolari, who lasted just 3\u2154 innings after walking six and allowing five earned runs. But Wasikowski saved all of its best relievers for the rest of the super regional and has its best pitcher, Will Sanford, ready for Sunday\u2019s game against Texas senior Ruger Riojas.<\/p>\n
Wasikowski curiously enough turned to a redshirt freshman who didn\u2019t throw a pitch in the Eugene Regional in one of Saturday\u2019s highest-leverage moment. He called on little-used left-hander Jonah Barkoff, who had thrown only 5\u2153 innings in five different appearances. Barkoff fell off balance during his delivery and balked home Texas\u2019 fifth run of the game, a moment that went the home team\u2019s way.<\/p>\n
The Longhorns remained perfect with their fourth consecutive win in the NCAA postseason and have now outscored their four different opponents 52-10. They have scored runs in 23 of their 34 post-season innings and never trailed by more than one run in four games. While they only had eight hits, four were for extra bases.<\/p>\n
Oregon, on the other hand, put theirs to little use. They collected nine hits on the night but could not come up with one in the clutch for the life of them. The Ducks went 0-for-13 with runners in scoring position.<\/p>\n
However, Texas took full advantage of the wildness of three Oregon pitchers, who combined to walk eight and hit three more batters. Of those 11, only four eventually scored. The Ducks also balked in another run with the bases loaded.<\/p>\n
While Robbins and Tinney went hitless, the rest of the order came through.<\/p>\n
The slumping Borba, who went 2 for 14 in the regional, smashed his 18th long ball of the year and 34th of his career. It was also the Longhorns\u2019 100th homer of the season. Mendoza would add the 101th four innings later.<\/p>\n
The Longhorns now have hit 14 home runs in four NCAA Tournament games. They\u2019ll likely need more Sunday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dylan Volantis struck out 10 and allowed two runs in Texas’ opener against Oregon in the super regional.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":326451,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-326450","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\/326450","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=326450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326450\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/326451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=326450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=326450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=326450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}