It has proved to be an early season battle between No.12 Texas baseball and mother nature.
The Longhorns second game against the Santa Clara Broncos started out nice and sunny accompanied by light winds — a hitters paradise.
By the end of the game, it was a cold windy mess, with gusts topping out at 30 mph. Still, Texas prevailed through the less than ideal conditions topping the Broncos 8-3 Saturday afternoon at UFCU Disch-Falk Field.
“Good job by our team today. The day started off as a warm day and a pretty fun day to hit, and ended up being a cooler day, a really tough day to hit,” head coach Jim Schlossnagle said.
Texas quickly jumped on the board in the opening inning with a pair of doubles by junior shortstop Jalin Flores and sophomore outfielder Tommy Farmer IV bringing in two RBIs. The Longhorns tacked on two more runs in their next two frames.
Replacing Santa Clara senior starting pitcher Victor Martinez in the middle of the third, freshman reliever RJ Meyn faced sophomore outfielder Will Gasparino, who came in to pinch hit for sophomore outfielder Easton Winfield. Gasparino banked in on his first appearance, hitting a double for an RBI.
Meyn continued to struggle against Texas’ batters in the fourth frame, walking and hitting five total Longhorns on the mound. With bases loaded, sophomore infielder Casey Borba stepped up to plate.
Cashing in on his first hit of the game, Borba’s double into center field was caught in the wind carrying it further making Santa Clara’s center fielder miss the routine catch. With the extended time, Farmer IV, freshman infielder Adrian Rodriguez and Flores all made it home, extending Texas’ lead to 7-1.
“Borba’s double was obviously massive.” Schlossnagle said. “The wind kind of pushed that away from the center fielder, he thought he had a beat on it.”
Although the stats look worse, graduate student infielder Kimble Schuessler made contact on his first four at bats with all four popping up for the easy out. Finally on his final at bat in the eighth inning, Schuessler singled up the middle sending Flores home for Texas’ final run.
Sophomore second baseman Ethan Mendoza extended his multi-hit streak to seven games, going three for five today. Mendoza came in for the game’s first run, coming home after Flores’ double in the opening inning.
Junior relief pitcher Ruger Riojas came in for redshirt junior pitcher Luke Harrison in the top of the fourth inning. Riojas earned his third win of the season pitching for 4.2 innings, throwing 87 pitches and striking out 3 batters for 4.40 ERA.
“I just take it one inning at a time,” Riojas said. “The adrenaline stayed with me throughout the entire game. As we got into later innings my (velocity), pretty much stayed where it was from the beginning.”
Texas will play its final game against Santa Clara tomorrow at 1 p.m. at UFCU Disch-Falk Field in Austin, Texas.
