No. 2 Texas heads to elimination bracket after mistake-filled loss to UTSA in the Austin Regional

It was a painful night for Texas fans in Austin.

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Even with series losses to Arkansas and Florida in two of the final three weeks of the regular season, and a first-game exit from the conference tournament, the thought of outdueling their counterparts 86 miles southwest seemed like a given. Unfortunately for most of the 8,000 fans in attendance, the UTSA Roadrunners capitalized on defensive mistakes and poor situational hitting to deliver a killer blow to Texas’ Omaha chances, defeating the Longhorns 9-7 and solidifying the sole spot in the winner’s bracket.

At a baseline, Texas seemed like the favored team in this matchup. UTSA had just two more hits than Texas, but the Longhorns tallied the same number of XBHs and earned seven more free passes than the Roadrunners. With a quartet of Luke Harrison, Max Grubbs, Thomas Burns, and Dylan Volantis all hitting the mound—a group that entered the game with a combined 2.69 ERA—those preliminary stats looked like plenty to secure a comfortable win.

But base-hitting stats tell far from the whole story. Harrison was burdened with five runs on the mound through 4 1/3 innings, but just two of those were earned. UTSA’s first run of the game in the second inning likely never would have crossed the basepaths if not for a Casey Borba throwing error.

Three innings later, the Roadrunners wouldn’t have been able to start their rally if not for a botched grounder off the glove of Adrian Rodriguez. That same runner advanced on a passed ball, and a single up the middle three batters later should never have gotten past Jalin Flores at short. Though not an error, UTSA scored two runs off a ball that should never have exited the infield.

“I think they responded really well,” catcher Rylan Galvan said. “Hats off to them. They punched us in the mouth, and it took us a little bit to respond.”

Four runs in the fifth were just the start, as the Roadrunners added another crooked inning in the sixth thanks to three singles, a walk, and a double. Though a tough play, Flores didn’t do reliever Max Grubbs any favors by not corralling a bloop shot off the tip of his glove. That same inning stirred controversy, as Flores made a nice throw to nab a runner at home to end the inning, one that UTSA pleaded for interference on. LF Jonah Williams exchanged plenty of words with members of the UTSA team but said he was “just playing baseball.”

Despite eight runs from UTSA in six innings, Texas was still within two scores, as they had their own crooked inning in the third, batting through the order to notch five runs on the board. But the end of that inning marked the start of an ugly streak for the Longhorns.

From innings three through five, Texas struck out swinging to end every frame, combining for six runners left on base in those three frames. But the hard times were far from over.

Quickly responding to UTSA’s sixth-inning rally, Texas got two runners on base. With two on and no outs, Flores squared for a bunt and popped it straight up for the first out. Will Gasparino followed that with his own swinging K before Williams stepped up to the plate. Still with two on, Williams worked a 3-2 count but was frozen where he stood in the box—strike three looking—and UTSA escaped unscathed.

“I mean, playoff baseball, man, everybody’s fighting for their lives,” Texas head coach Jim Schlossnagle said. “So even when we’re up five, you knew UTSA is not going to go down. I think we can’t give up free bases. So we lit the fire, and they stoked it and kind of ran with it.”

The seventh brought a run for Texas on a Galvan homer, but Max Belyeu also ended the inning with a backwards K. Texas was then given a chance at redemption, with the exact same scenario as the sixth inning emerging in the eighth. Kimble Schuessler at second, Rodriguez at first. No outs, Flores.

But Texas just couldn’t deliver. Flores popped up, Gasparino was completely fooled on an 0-2 strikeout, and Williams once again went down looking. With UTSA adding a run of insurance, the ninth inning would require two runs from Texas’ 9-1-2 and beyond to stay alive. With two outs, Galvan registered a walk, setting up slugger Max Belyeu for a chance to tie the game. But, just as Williams did twice and himself once before, Belyeu struck out looking, ending the game with a flutter of Roadrunners swarming the field and overtaking UFCU Disch-Falk Field.

Texas ended the game with 12 strikeouts and 14 runners left on base.

“The message for the team is we can’t be thinking about playing anything other than just one pitch at a time,” Schlossnagle said. “I know it sounds ‘coachie,’ but that’s the fact. If we start thinking about the overall scheme of things, that won’t ever happen that way.”

This was one of the most embarrassing losses in recent Texas postseason history; there’s no sugarcoating it. At least at home, Texas hasn’t had this dejecting of a loss at the Disch since 2011, when Kent State upset the Longhorns in the first game of the 2011 Austin Regional.

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Texas will have to rebound quickly, bouncing back from a game ending at midnight to a 2 P.M. start time against Kansas State in an elimination game. Texas needs three wins from here on out for any dreams of playing in Omaha to come true. It’ll be RHP Ruger Riojas vs. RHP Tanner Duke battling it out for survival.