Matt Cotcher
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submitted Today, 11:09 PM in Texas Longhorns Baseball By Matt Cotcher
@mlcotcher
FINAL: Texas 4 – West Virginia 3, 10 innings
The Longhorns helped themselves to a 1-0 series lead over the Mountaineers on Friday night, but it did not come easily. After racing out of the gate with a run in the top of the first inning, West Virginia led, or the game was tied, for the first six and a half innings.
Although he did not factor in the decision, senior Parker French pitched a strong nine innings – a career-high effort for the right-hander. French only allowed two earned runs while striking out seven batters.
Brooks Marlow and CJ Hinojosa each hit solo homeruns, with Hinojosa’s tying the game in the seventh frame. Marlow, Hinojosa and Ben Johnson all had two hits apiece for the Horns.
Kirby Bellow, who threw one scoreless inning of relief, earned the win. Bellow retired WVU in order in the top of the tenth inning.
Post-game comments
Augie Garrido on the series opener: The rally in the bottom of the 10th was set up by the quality of at-bats all the way from the time we got behind. We hit the ball really hard tonight. We did a very good job throughout the game. That's one of the tough things about baseball, to keep your spirits in tact and keep your competitive spirit, to manage that when there is so much failure, like the ball hit at the second baseman, some of those things like that, that you just can't prevent. The hitter does a good job; the defense does a better one. There is an element of luck that affects both sides.
But to come out with a win, this is what I talk about all of the time; you can't get mentally tough enough until you play these kind of games. You can't understand the importance of every pitch until you play these kind of games, because now you look back on it and our first baseman went inside and didn't come back to the bag, one thing like that was two runs. So this is how you learn, but its much more effective when you play the game and it is that difficult and it is that competitive and it is that meaningful and win, because it breaks your heart when you lose and you have left everything out there and you lose, and that happens too.
Augie Garrido on the lineup’s contributions evening out: To really be a championship type team we have to have more than five hitters in the line up that can produce at any given moment. All of them are capable but every year this is the way it starts: about half of them are doing great and half of them are doing lousy. Then all of the sudden, in the middle, as you go on, the gap just closes between them. But I feel confident that we are very close to having the line up that we will be using. Kacy [Clemens] made his presence felt tonight with a real quality at bat. He could have swung at those balls outside the strike zone and that could have been a whole different issue. The other thing is that he is a very experienced first baseman.
Augie Garrido on Parker French: He was very efficient I would call it, because he wasn't fired up, he was very well balanced in between innings. He dealt with his disappointments the same way he dealt with his success. He just came in, got ready to go back out and he was very workman like in his performance, very steady.
Augie Garrido on Connor Macalla: He has been here about a year and a half now and last year he could hit the ball like that, it just didn't go very far because he wasn't very strong. He put a lot of work in during the summer and playing in the summer league and just came back absolutely determined to make this line up in some way, shape or form.
Connor Macalla on the game winning sac fly: It was fun, I felt like I was in a movie. I was tuned into the pitcher, I heard the crowd chanting, it was awesome. Got it in my hotspot and I tried to get it in the air and it worked.
Connor Macalla on playing at Texas: Well I found out two years ago about this day, I got an email from [Director of Baseball Operations] Drew Bishop that asked if I wanted to play baseball at Texas and how do you say no?
Parker French on his effort: I think it was a little bit that they didn't know what pitch was coming, so that's kind of nice, to be able to pitch and them not know what's coming. I think I spotted it pretty well the whole game.
Parker French on his pitch mix: Yeah, it was really good tonight. I thought it was probably the best stuff I've had all year, probably the best stuff I've had in my career probably outside of coming out of the bullpen. It was good to see, good to get swings and misses on that, get some strike outs.
Parker French on the atmosphere: I don't mind pitching in that situation, when there is a lot of high energy and high stakes. I kind of thrive in that situation; I am kind of used to it in my career so it was fun. Really fun game.
Parker French on building momentum from the win: It's huge, it's really huge, it kind of reminds me of last year against Baylor when Mark hit that walk-off, you know momentum definitely builds on our side. Tomorrow is a new day. We have to come to the ballpark like it's opening day and just go have fun with this series and go and compete hard.
FINAL: Texas 4 – West Virginia 3, 10 innings
The Longhorns helped themselves to a 1-0 series lead over the Mountaineers on Friday night, but it did not come easily. After racing out of the gate with a run in the top of the first inning, West Virginia led, or the game was tied, for the first six and a half innings.
Although he did not factor in the decision, senior Parker French pitched a strong nine innings – a career-high effort for the right-hander. French only allowed two earned runs while striking out seven batters.
Brooks Marlow and CJ Hinojosa each hit solo homeruns, with Hinojosa’s tying the game in the seventh frame. Marlow, Hinojosa and Ben Johnson all had two hits apiece for the Horns.
Kirby Bellow, who threw one scoreless inning of relief, earned the win. Bellow retired WVU in order in the top of the tenth inning.
Post-game comments
Augie Garrido on the series opener: The rally in the bottom of the 10th was set up by the quality of at-bats all the way from the time we got behind. We hit the ball really hard tonight. We did a very good job throughout the game. That's one of the tough things about baseball, to keep your spirits in tact and keep your competitive spirit, to manage that when there is so much failure, like the ball hit at the second baseman, some of those things like that, that you just can't prevent. The hitter does a good job; the defense does a better one. There is an element of luck that affects both sides.
But to come out with a win, this is what I talk about all of the time; you can't get mentally tough enough until you play these kind of games. You can't understand the importance of every pitch until you play these kind of games, because now you look back on it and our first baseman went inside and didn't come back to the bag, one thing like that was two runs. So this is how you learn, but its much more effective when you play the game and it is that difficult and it is that competitive and it is that meaningful and win, because it breaks your heart when you lose and you have left everything out there and you lose, and that happens too.
Augie Garrido on the lineup’s contributions evening out: To really be a championship type team we have to have more than five hitters in the line up that can produce at any given moment. All of them are capable but every year this is the way it starts: about half of them are doing great and half of them are doing lousy. Then all of the sudden, in the middle, as you go on, the gap just closes between them. But I feel confident that we are very close to having the line up that we will be using. Kacy [Clemens] made his presence felt tonight with a real quality at bat. He could have swung at those balls outside the strike zone and that could have been a whole different issue. The other thing is that he is a very experienced first baseman.
Augie Garrido on Parker French: He was very efficient I would call it, because he wasn't fired up, he was very well balanced in between innings. He dealt with his disappointments the same way he dealt with his success. He just came in, got ready to go back out and he was very workman like in his performance, very steady.
Augie Garrido on Connor Macalla: He has been here about a year and a half now and last year he could hit the ball like that, it just didn't go very far because he wasn't very strong. He put a lot of work in during the summer and playing in the summer league and just came back absolutely determined to make this line up in some way, shape or form.
Connor Macalla on the game winning sac fly: It was fun, I felt like I was in a movie. I was tuned into the pitcher, I heard the crowd chanting, it was awesome. Got it in my hotspot and I tried to get it in the air and it worked.
Connor Macalla on playing at Texas: Well I found out two years ago about this day, I got an email from [Director of Baseball Operations] Drew Bishop that asked if I wanted to play baseball at Texas and how do you say no?
Parker French on his effort: I think it was a little bit that they didn't know what pitch was coming, so that's kind of nice, to be able to pitch and them not know what's coming. I think I spotted it pretty well the whole game.
Parker French on his pitch mix: Yeah, it was really good tonight. I thought it was probably the best stuff I've had all year, probably the best stuff I've had in my career probably outside of coming out of the bullpen. It was good to see, good to get swings and misses on that, get some strike outs.
Parker French on the atmosphere: I don't mind pitching in that situation, when there is a lot of high energy and high stakes. I kind of thrive in that situation; I am kind of used to it in my career so it was fun. Really fun game.
Parker French on building momentum from the win: It's huge, it's really huge, it kind of reminds me of last year against Baylor when Mark hit that walk-off, you know momentum definitely builds on our side. Tomorrow is a new day. We have to come to the ballpark like it's opening day and just go have fun with this series and go and compete hard.
