Posted June 2nd, 2007 by Joanna
Filed under: Baseball

Texas lost to UC-Irvine this evening 1-3. There were two main factors in the loss: (1) the Horns ran up against a pitcher (Scott Gorgen) who threw a whale of a game and (2) the UCI center fielder (Ollie Linton) made two amazing catches that took extra-base hits away from the Horns (both plays, by sad coincidence, robbed Russell Moldenhauer of hits). Looking at the boxscore, you might think errors played a part in the loss as well. But, they really didn’t. Only one of the errors led to a run. Nope. The main problem was that pitcher and the fact that Texas could not string two hits together to save their lives. The only inning in which the Horns did get more than one hit was the 6th. It started off when Chance Wheeless flew out to lf. Bradley Suttle followed that up with a single. Then, Russell Moldenhauer flew out to the lf/cf gap. That was one of those hits stolen by the center fielder. Suttle would’ve definitely ended up at 3b on the play…he might well have scored. And, Moldenhauer would’ve been standing on 2b with 1 out. Instead, Suttle was still at 1b with 2 outs. Nick Peoples then singled through the left side. If runners had been standing on 2b and 3b, at least one of them would’ve scored on that single. But that’s not what happened. And, Chais Fuller followed that up with a ground out to 3b. Which should’ve been the 2nd out of the inning. But, Linton made that catch. And, Texas did not score.

Adrian Alaniz got the start and took the loss. He did not pitch one of his “wow” games but he was not bad. He went 6.2 innings and gave up 3 runs (1 unearned) on 6 hits with 2 walks, 1 hit batter, and 7 (!) strikeouts. Normally, that would be more than good enough for Texas to win a game. But not today.

So, now what? Wake Forest beat Brown 4-2 in the early game today so now Texas will face Wake Forest in an elimination game at noon tomorrow. If (ahem…when) they win that, they’ll have to turn around and beat UCI at 6. And, then they’ll have to beat UCI again at 1 o’clock on Monday afternoon.

Texas was in the same position in 2005. After losing the 2nd game of the Austin Regional that year, they turned around and won three games. They then lost the first game of the Super Regional in Oxford, Mississippi, before going on to win the Super Regional to move on to the College World Series. And, then they…you know…won the College World Series. So, it can be done. The Longhorns have done it. Here’s hoping they can do it again!

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