For the second straight weekend, the Texas baseball team has been swept, dropping below .500 in Big 12 play. West Virginia University beat the Longhorns on Friday 11-2 and Saturday 14-7 to take the series. The Mountaineers came out on Sunday to close out the series and won 9-5, completing the sweep against Texas.
The Longhorns left for Morgantown with a 9-9 record in Big 12 play; however, losing all three to West Virginia drops Texas to 9-12. The team now sits in the bottom of the Big 12 standings after losing six straight conference games – Kansas State, Baylor and Kansas are the only teams with worse conference records.
On Friday the Longhorns’ offense struck first with a Zane Gurwitz home run in the top of the second inning, but the lead didn’t last long. The Mountaineers put up four in the home half of the third against Texas’ pitcher Morgan Cooper. West Virginia plated one more in the sixth against Beau Ridgeway, unearned, before the Longhorns could plate another run. In the seventh, Jake McKenzie hit a sac fly to score Patrick Mathis making it a 5-2 game. The Mountaineers got that run back plus insurance in the bottom of the seventh, plating three runs against Travis Duke. Blake Wellmann gave up three more Mountaineer runs in the bottom of the eighth, and the Longhorns lost 11-2. Cooper took the loss, giving up four earned runs in five innings pitched. He allowed seven hits while striking out four. The Longhorns offense struggled, compiling only five hits while striking out nine times.
Texas sent Ty Culbreth to the mound on Saturday to even the series, but the Mountaineers’ offense picked up right where they left off on Friday night. West Virginia scored one in the first and four in the fourth before the Longhorns’ offense could get started. A Travis Jones triple and Tres Barrera home run plated two for Texas in the third. The Longhorns scored two more in the fourth and fifth and one in the sixth but couldn’t stop the West Virginia offense who scored one in the fourth, two in the fifth, four in the sixth, and one in the seventh and eighth. The Mountaineers beat the Longhorns 14-7. West Virginia chased Culbreth from the game in the fifth inning, giving him his shortest outing of the season. Culbreth gave up seven runs, six of them earned, and nine hits in 4.1 innings of work. Eric Dunbar took over for Culbreth in the fifth and recorded two outs while also taking the loss for the Longhorns. He sacrificed one run that was not earned. Texas went through a total of six pitchers on Saturday. On the offensive side, the Longhorns recorded a total of eight hits with Jones, Kacy Clemens and Kody Clemens all having multi-hit days. Kody had three RBIs with two doubles.
Texas tried to salvage Sunday’s game with Kyle Johnston on the mound, but the sophomore struggled early. Johnston allowed five free passes in 1.2 innings of work. The Mountaineers offense scored three in the first inning and four in the second inning. The Longhorns snuck a run across the plate in the second with a Gurwitz double followed by a Tyler Rand single but after two Texas trailed 7-1. In the third, Gurwitz pulled through again for the Longhorns with a three run home run, closing the West Virginia lead to three runs. Jones hit a sac fly to score Bret Boswell in the fourth, cutting the Mountaineer lead again, but West Virginia got that run back in the bottom half of the inning and scored one more in the sixth. The Longhorns offense didn’t score again after the fourth, losing 9-5 in the final game of the series. Despite the loss, Texas recorded nine hits. Gurwitz finished the game 2-for-4 with a double and home run, providing three RBIs for the team. Mathis finished 4-for-5 with a double.
The Longhorns look to even their Big 12 record in two weeks, May 19-21, hosting Baylor for their final conference series of the regular season. The Bears own a 6-12 conference record and a 20-24 overall record. Texas sits at 21-27 overall.
