2022 Austin regional preview: High expectations remain as Texas' postseason begins at home

The Texas Longhorns’ 2022 baseball schedule began with an 11-0 stretch, saw struggles during the months of March and April, and culminated with a run to the Big 12 tournament championship game. Their 42-19 record was deemed worthy of the No. 9 overall seed in the 2022 NCAA tournament, securing a four-team regional at UFCU Disch-Falk Field in Austin.

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For Pierce, it’s his fourth regional appearance as head coach of the Longhorns and third time hosting in Austin. There were times during the 2022 campaign when postseason baseball at the Disch was no certainty. He credited his team for battling through mid-season adversity to earn the right to play at home in the first portion of college baseball’s postseason.

“It’s a tribute to these guys not giving in,” Pierce said Monday. “They just keep playing. A lot of questions back then to the players about the sentiment of possibly your last game here, and now they have an opportunity to win a regional here. I think it’s really cool.”

Those questions Pierce is referring to were asked during the Longhorns’ final regular season series versus the Kansas Jayhawks. Hosting was no sure thing for Texas in mid-May. Texas’ sweep to end the season and wins over other NCAA tournament teams in Arlington made sure those last regular season games weren’t the last games in 2022 at the Disch.

For players like sixth-year senior Austin Todd, who was on Pierce’s first Texas team in 2017, these are home games he’s grateful for. Todd suffered a season-ending injury in 2021 but could still remain in the dugout in home games during Texas’ run to Omaha. If Texas had to go on the road, Todd was forced to watch from the couch. This year, additional injuries have limited Todd to the designated hitter role, but he’s relishing the chance to play at home in the postseason one more time.

“We’re going to have the crowd at our back,” Todd said Monday. “We’re going to have the Friday night crowd. We’re going to have Pete (Hansen) on the mound. It’s going to be a great environment. We’re ready to roll.”

Texas will host Dallas Baptist, Louisiana Tech, and Air Force in the regional, and will play the Falcons on Friday at 1 p.m. In April, Air Force split a mid-week series with the Longhorns, with a Trey Faltine walk-off homer preventing the Falcons from taking two at the Disch. The announced crowd was under 6,000 for each game, well shy of the listed capacity of 7,373.

The Longhorns’ home stadium will be packed full for Longhorn games this weekend, and there might even be a chance to break an attendance record after social media spotted temporary seating added down the left-field line.

Whatever environment the Falcons played in during the April series will look a lot different on Friday afternoon.

“We didn’t have the crowd obviously in the midweek games that we’re going to have this weekend,” Hansen said Monday. “It’s playoff baseball, it’s a different energy and there’s a lot more on the line. This team is experienced in it and we know how to play in those big games so I’m excited for it.”

The expectations remain high east of IH-35

Texas began the season ranked No. 1 or close to it in most major polls. The 11-0 start indicated the preseason prognostications may have been spot-on. Baseball seasons, even college baseball seasons, are long. Plenty can happen, and for the Longhorns, plenty did.

Sunday starter Tanner Witt was lost for the year when it was determined he needed Tommy John surgery in March. Then, Todd was lost for an extended stretch when he dislocated his shoulder. Texas was reeling. A home loss to Texas State exacerbated the issue. Losing three games during a five-game road trip in South Carolina, dropping a mid-week contest to Texas A&M, and a series loss at Texas Tech put the Longhorns in a tough spot.

Through more ups and downs, including a brief unranked spell, the Longhorns battled back to win 11 of it’s final 14 games and earn a regional.

As the postseason begins, Texas standards and expectations remain as high as they were at every point of the 2022 season.

“This is the part that matters for everybody,” Faltine said Monday. “Going forward, we don’t care what anybody else did in their conference or preseason. This is what matters and this is what we’re looking forward to.”

Faltine also said the goal for the Longhorn baseball program this year and every year is to go to Omaha and play for championships. Todd, the elder statesman on the Longhorns, echoed that sentiment.

“I think we’re all trying to compete for a national championship,” Todd said. “We expected to be in the tournament and we expected to be in this situation.”

A potential last hurrah for a core group

The typical Texas lineup is as follows:

• CF Douglas Hodo III
• LF Eric Kennedy
• 1B Ivan Melendez
• RF Murphy Stehly
• DH Austin Todd
• 3B Skyler Messinger
• C Silas Ardoin
• 2B Mitchell Daly
• SS Trey Faltine

Every single one of those players is either draft eligible or will be out of eligibility following the season. The same is true for Friday night starter Pete Hansen and do-it-all pitcher Tristan Stevens.

With a considerable amount of turnover at the top of the roster likely coming whenever Texas’ season is over, players like Todd are taking advantage of what could be their last opportunity in Austin.

“It’s an awesome experience, being there for so long – six years,” Todd said. “Going to that Long Beach regional (in 2017), you have some of these guys on the team come up to me and say ‘I was in middle school when I saw you in that regional. I saw you miss that ball in left field.’ I always tell them, ‘yeah, but we got him out.’”

WOWOWOW!!

Barehand relay executed to perfection and Texas cuts down the would be walk-off run!! #RoadToOmaha pic.twitter.com/UqPQXFPWJA

— NCAA Baseball (@NCAABaseball) June 4, 2017

Todd continued: “I’m pretty blessed to be able to give the experience I have to these younger guys. Hopefully we can go out there and we don’t have to have the same outcome as the Long Beach regional. We can win this thing.”

One of the players likely playing in his final season at Texas is first baseman Ivan Melendez. Selected as the Big 12 player of the year and Collegiate Baseball’s national player of the year, Melendez enters the postseason after struggling, on and off the field, at the Big 12 tournament.

Melendez revealed on Monday he fought fever, nausea, and chills throughout the Big 12 tournament. He was feeling better Monday, and now looks to solidify his legacy at Texas after breaking the program’s single-season record for home runs.

“You’ve got to keep that confidence high,” Melendez said. “It’s baseball, you’ve got to take it one pitch at a time and go from there.”

Pete Hansen ready to face a lineup that scored 24 runs in Austin

When the Falcons played two games in Austin on April 19 and 20, they faced ten different Longhorn pitchers. None of those pitchers were named Pete Hansen.

It wasn’t certain Hansen, a Collegiate Baseball second-team All-American, would have another outing at the Disch, but he felt confident he would after his most recent home start versus Kansas.

“I think we obviously did enough in the Big 12 tournament to make that happen,” Hansen said Monday. “I knew that wasn’t my last time at the Disch. I’m excited to get one more opportunity in front of the fans. It’s playoff baseball at the Disch, there’s nothing better than that.”

After Todd hinted at it Monday, Pierce announced Thursday that Hansen will get the ball in game one. He’ll likely face Air Force’s Paul Skenes, an ace in his own right.

Skenes was 10-2 with a 2.42 ERA and a 1.14 WHIP over 81.2 innings pitched. He surrendered 63 hits, 24 runs, and 30 walks while striking out 90 and limiting opponents to a .214 batting average.

It’ll be a marquee matchup of top-flight hurlers, even if it is a one-versus-four game. Hansen is ready for the challenge.

“They play with a lot of energy,” Hansen said. “They’re a very respectable team. It’s going to be a fun one. Obviously, we’ve seen them before. We have a little background on them going into the game. We’ve seen their hitters and stuff like that. It’s going to be fun.”

Texas and Air Force will play at 1 p.m. on Friday. Longhorn Network will televise the contest. Dallas Baptist and Louisiana Tech will play at 6:30 p.m. on ESPN+. A win on Friday and Texas will play at 6 p.m. on Saturday versus the winner of LA Tech and DBU. A loss would send them to the noon elimination game.