Jeff Howe

BOOM! OPPO-TACO FOR MAX BELYEU!

Galvan chases upstairs and he was upset with himself for striking out.

Mendoza doubles to center to get things started for the Longhorns in the top of the first.

Through four innings of Saturday’s 9-7 loss to UTSA in the Austin Regional, Texas looked the part of the No. 2 overall national seed. A two-out, two-run single through the right side of the Roadrunner infield by Jonah Williams and Casey Borba’s RBI double to left field highlighted a five-run, four-hit third inning for the SEC regular-season champions. Leading 6-1 with reliable lefty Luke Harrison toeing the rubber, the Longhorns seemed well on their way to a winner’s bracket victory when they took the field for the top of the fifth. Unfortunately, Texas (43-13) suffered a catastrophic blowout, derailing what had been a relatively smooth ride. Jim Schlossnagle’s club suddenly looked like the one that had lost seven of its previous 11 games before going down at the hands of UTSA (46-13) for the second time in as many meetings. A fielding error charged to Adrian Rodriguez (one of two on the night for the Longhorns, who couldn’t overcome a tidal wave of defensive mishaps) and Harrison issuing free passes loaded the bases to open the frame. Jalin Flores didn’t quite catch up to a ground ball up the middle off the bat of second baseman Nathan Hodge. Hodge scored with one out after his two-run single kickstarted a four-run inning for the Roadrunners, pulling off a double steal while occupying third base with one out. Right fielder James Taussig made it a one-run game by ripping a double to right-center. "It was just a back-and-forth game from that point on," Schlossnagle said. Texas failed to get a run back in the home half, which ended on a Max Belyeu strikeout with the bases loaded. Max Grubbs opened the fifth by recording two outs on two pitches, but Flores misread Hodge’s blooper, one of three consecutive singles for the Roadrunners, who grabbed a 7-6 advantage. UTSA didn't trail the rest of the way. The defensive issues, combined with the Longhorns stranding 13 runners on a woeful 3-for-18 night at the plate with runners in scoring position, and ace right-hander Braylon Owens ending each of his four relief innings for the Roadrunners with one of the seven strikeouts he fired put Texas in a situation where it has to win twice on Sunday to force a winner-take-all regional championship on Monday. "We lit the fire and they stoked it and ran with it," Schlossnagle said of coach Pat Hallmark's team, which has notched the first two NCAA Tournament wins in program history with two wins in as many days at UFCU Disch-Falk Field. "The message to the team is we can't be thinking about playing anything other than just one pitch at a time. I know it sounds coachy, but that's the fact. If we start thinking about the overall scheme of things, it won't ever happen that way. What the Longhorns will attempt isn’t unprecedented. As a regional host in 2005, Texas dropped a winner’s bracket game to Arkansas before beating Miami (Ohio) and dispatching the Razorbacks twice en route to the school’s sixth national championship. The Longhorns made a similar trek to Omaha in 2011, eliminating Texas State and notching two wins over Kent State to survive the regional. Nevertheless, Schlossnagle’s club must overcome Rodriguez, Williams and Ethan Mendoza continuing to battle injuries and a depleted pitching staff (Ruger Riojas will get the ball in the elimination game, but all bets are off thereafter) to advance to a second elimination game Sunday night. UTSA has every reason to be confident it will join the 81 percent of regional champions who started 2-0 since the NCAA adopted the Super Regional format in 1999. "This isn't some jackleg team that's gotten hot," Schlossnagle said of the Roadrunners. "They're really good." Texas, on the other hand, knows extending the season to Monday is a tall order. "The goal moving forward is just to win one pitch at a time and not try to look ahead or think about winning two games or trying to win three games," said catcher Rylan Galvan, who did his part in the late innings, crushing his team-leading 15th home run of the season to left field in the bottom of the seventh. "Just win one pitch at a time. If we can do that, we'll put ourselves in the position." The Longhorns are facing an uphill battle, 27 outs away from the curtain coming down on Schlossnagle’s memorable debut. The only option Texas has is to start the climb. Whether it has enough gas in the tank to make it to the summit is another story. "We may have lost this battle, but we didn't lose the war yet," Galvan said. "There's still a lot of baseball to be played." View full news story

The Longhorns are the designated visiting team for this game. They're in their dugout, but wearing their road grays and batting first.

The game will start on ESPNEWS. It'll switch over to ESPN whenever the Clemson-Kentucky game is done.

I'm not picking on anyone, but I want to clearly state that if the 2025 college baseball season ends in the next 3-4 hours, I won't spend it worrying and being nervous about what might happen. I'm going to enjoy the hell out of the ride, however long it lasts.

The official lineup hasn’t been posted yet, but here’s the Texas lineup:

In the immortal words of Vincent Paul Young Jr., “Let your 🥜 hang!” The time is now!

It’s do or die for the Longhorns. Schloss has made some lineup adjustments for today’s elimination game against Kansas State (2 p.m., ESPN).

This one has gotten so far off topic, it’s pretty close to getting locked. Let’s get it back on the rails.

It depends on who gets used in the first game today. After Riojas gets the ball, all bets are off.

If that’s really what happened, I seriously hope Lisa Campos and the folks at UTSA find the culprits and ban them from attending sporting events. I try not to jump the gun when it comes to banning/canceling someone, but that’s outright gross human behavior.

Whitehead is taking a redshirt. Mercer isn’t on the roster for the regional. McCreery has been injured. Moffett has had control issues. Navarre and Rerick had mixed results in limited duty.

Just when you think the Aggies or the Sooners have jumped the other in the pecking order of the most annoying rival, the other one finds a way to redeem themselves and claim the top spot.

No doubt.

I agree with Blake and a few others in the thread. The short of it is, Texas played a sloppy game against a good team. That’ll get you beat this time of year. The injuries/issues we’ve talked about for the last six weeks or so are finally catching up with the Longhorns. The pitching staff, for instance, had no margin for error when Spencer went down. Texas needed Luke Harrison to eat innings and for the defense to play well behind him and protect a five-run lead. Neither of those things happened. The Longhorns can get to Monday, but it’ll take much cleaner baseball with the timely hits that haven’t been there lately to get the job done.

I vote for Rod Wright‘s torso carrying him into the end zone against the Sooners!

Schloss said Riojas will get the ball against K-State and they'll go from there.

I think the number is 83% of the time, the team that starts 2-0 wins the regional.

UC Irvine was a regional loss. They had to play that one at Dell Diamond because Disch-Falk was under construction.

We’ll see what Schloss says about the pitching plan for tomorrow. It’s a rough outlook, to say the least.

Now you've gotta win three games in two days to keep the season alive. Not an ideal scenario.

The Longhorns face Kansas State at 2 p.m. tomorrow in an elimination game.