Texas Baseball goes all in, sweeps Las Vegas College Classic in dominant offensive fashion
Just last year, the stigma revolving around the Texas Baseball program was that head coach David Pierce’s teams couldn’t win in early season tournaments.
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The Longhorns went 0-3 in Houston in 2024, marking the second straight year they had been swept in an MLB ballpark and the fourth time in five years they had struggled mightily in a pre-conference play tournament.
But now, under new head coach Jim Schlossnagle, Texas has won five of six tournament games this year, winning their second college classic tourney with a 3-0 mark this past weekend in Las Vegas following a 2-1 effort Arlington to kick off the season.
The Longhorn bats were alive in Sin City, trouncing pitching staffs from Washington, Texas Tech and Illinois for 35 runs in three games. Texas benefited from multiple crooked innings throughout the weekend, scoring between three and nine runs in an inning five times in three games.
Texas kicked off the weekend with a 10-9 nail-biter against Washington, winning their third one-run game of the year in four attempts thanks to a seven-run sixth inning. Shortstop Jalin Flores had far and away his best game of the young season, hitting two home runs and scoring a team-leading three times in a game the veteran needed after a rough start to the year.
LHP starter Jared Spencer pitched a career high six innings of one run baseball, striking out nine and only walking two batters. Spencer showcased his best command of the year. Reliever Cody Howard struggled, giving up five runs on five hits without recording an out, but a quartet of Ruger Riojas, Thomas Burns, Andre Duplantier II and Max Grubbs held the lead, striking out five in the final nine outs of the game.
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Texas then got out to a quick Saturday lead against their former rival in Texas Tech, scoring seven in the second inning. Leadoff hitter Ethan Mendoza had another home run, tying his freshman Arizona State mark of three just 10 games into the season. The Longhorns rode LHP Luke Harrison’s solid arm to a 10-5 win. Harrison struck out seven in five innings, while Dylan Volantis earned a three-inning save, striking out five.
Texas looked to have run out of magic over the weekend after 3.1 innings against Illinois. The Illini rocked LHP Kade Bing in the fourth inning, scoring five and taking a 6-1 lead. Texas’ bats hadn’t woken up yet, but they quickly responded in the next half inning.
Texas scored 13 runs in the next three innings, exploding to a 15-6 lead by the end of the seventh, a score that would hold as Grubbs gave Texas over four innings of scoreless pitching. RF Max Belyeu continued his SEC Player of the Year caliber campaign, adding four hits to his already team-leading numbers and driving in three RBI.
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In the blink of an eye Texas has gone through three weeks of baseball and have achieved considerable success, and are now ranked as the No. 12 team in the nation by D1 Baseball and Baseball America. Texas is now 9-1 on the year with five games left before SEC play, when they’ll travel to Starkville to play a weekend series against Mississippi State starting on March 14. Texas will face A&M-Corpus Christi tomorrow and will host Santa Clara over the weekend, with the Longhorns hoping to get up to that 15-win number before entering SEC play.
