Freshman catcher Rylan Galvan finally rewarded Texas baseball head coach David Pierce’s patience, enjoying a much-needed breakout game after starting the year 0-10 in his at-bats and helping the Longhorns to one of their most complete wins of the season.

“We don’t play for .500,” Pierce said. “The goal right now is just to get better every day. It’s much more about us than anybody we play against.”

Texas soundly defeated the visiting Mercer Bears 11-3 to win consecutive games for the second time this year. The Longhorns scored in the first four innings, racing out to a 10-0 lead that Mercer would never threaten.

Texas struck first on an RBI single from junior catcher Garrett Guillemette that split second and third base and sent junior right fielder Dylan Campbell home.

Galvan’s night started off in style, with his first career hit being a two-run homer in the bottom of the second inning that broke open the game for Texas. 

Redshirt junior left fielder Porter Brown punched in redshirt senior center fielder Eric Kennedy home on a double to left field and scored after a Guillemette single, extending the lead to 5-0 by the end of the second inning.

Galvan’s strong night continued in the next inning, hitting an RBI double that scored runners on second and third to push the lead to seven.

“He’s a very strong kid,” Pierce said. “He goes out and blasts his first hit, it’s a home run, and hits a couple line drives that picked up a few more RBIs. Really awesome for him.”

Kennedy’s RBI double deep into right field scored Galvan, and on the next at-bat, Campbell hit a near-identical shot into deep right field to score Kennedy and extend the lead to nine through just three innings.

Galvan added an RBI single to right field in the fourth inning, making it a 10-0 game and tacking on his fourth RBI of the night. 

Mercer cut into the Longhorns’ lead in the sixth, seventh and ninth innings with individual runs, but never cut the lead to less than eight.

Galvan wasn’t the only Longhorn to register his first career hit. Freshman pinch hitter Max Belyeu hit a single in the bottom of the eighth, the first of his Texas career.

Additionally, freshman pitcher Max Grubbs saw his first action of the season, pitching scoreless fourth and fifth innings with six ground ball outs.

Sophomore Ace Whitehead drew the start pitching for the Longhorns, throwing a terrific 2.1 innings that allowed just two hits to seven outs. He is yet to allow a run on the season.

While redshirt junior third baseman Peyton Powell wasn’t the hero he was against Sam Houston, he added an insurance RBI single in the eighth to give the Longhorns their 11th and last run of the night.

The Longhorns improve to 6–7 this season, and will look to get back to .500 as they host Manhattan University this weekend for a three-game series.