Anthony Silva, Kurtis Byrne reveal what allowed TCU to have success offensively in win

The bats were hot for the TCU offense in Tuesday’s College World Series elimination game against Oral Roberts. The Horned Frogs wasted no time jumping out to an early lead on the Golden Eagles in an eventual 6-1 victory to stay alive another day.

Eight players recorded at least one hit in the win, with designated hitter Kurtis Byrne being one of three players tied for the team lead with two in his four at-bats. Speaking postgame, Byrne talked about the patience and poise that TCU displayed at the plate and why that was critical in helping the offense find success.

“I think the biggest thing, they were doing a really good job of making good pitches, kind of slowing us down a little bit, nibbling off the plate,” he said. “They were doing a great job executing. But I think the biggest thing for us, coach talked about it, it’s all about winning pitches especially down the stretch in that fifth inning on and really just not trying to do too much and kind of let our training and everything take over, and just not trying to just force the issue at that point in the game.”

The Horned Frogs jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the second inning and increased their advantage to 2-0 in the fourth after Byrne scored on a balk. The real turning point, however, took place the next inning when TCU scored four runs to go up 6-0.

Leadoff hitter Elijah Nunez began the inning with a single, the first of what would eventually be four hits for the Horned Frogs in the frame. Nunez later scored on an RBI single from Cole Fontenelle and then Byrne drove in the second run on a sacrifice fly. Anthony Silva stepped up to the plate after that and singled to drive in the final two runs of the inning.

“Throughout this whole season, we’ve probably been in every situation possible so we knew how to handle all of that,” Silva said. “We practice every situation possible. That’s what we’ve been training all season long since the fall. And we just need to play our game, and that’s exactly what we did.”

Oral Roberts scored a run in the bottom of the inning, but that would be all the Golden Eagles could muster as the Horned Frogs defense stood strong to close things out. The win was the second straight for TCU, who previously lost to ORU in the opening game of the College World Series.

The Horned Frogs will hope to continuing their hitting success as they must reel off two more wins against Florida to reach the finals. They’ll first face the Gators at 2 p.m. ET on Wednesday, and again on Thursday if they manage to win that contest.