Texas Baseball: No. 5 Longhorns overwhelm KU in weekend sweep

It was a big weekend for No. 5 ranked Texas baseball and head coach David Pierce on the road in Lawrence, KS. Texas took to the Diamond in Lawrence this weekend to face the up and down Kansas Jayhawks in a three-game series.

In their meeting with the Jayhawks on April 2, the Longhorns downed their Big 12 opposition in dominant fashion by the final score of 7-0. Texas beat Kansas also back on April 1 in what would be the closest game of the weekend in this three-game series, by a score of 5-2. It was right-handers Ty Madden and Tristan Stevens that got the call to the mound for the Longhorns in the first two meetings with Kansas in this weekend series.

But on April 3, Texas gave the start to redshirt sophomore right-hander Kolby Kubichek, who’s had the hot hand of late. This was a nice set of projected pitchers to take the mound for the Longhorns, who only gave up a combined four runs on the weekend.

How Texas baseball swept the Jayhawks?

Texas got the early jump on the Jayhawks on April 3 and never really let up. They had a four-run third inning, and then added two more in the fourth. And the only run that Kubichek gave up on the afternoon was in the bottom of the sixth inning, which would be his final on the mound.

Kubichek wound up pitching six complete innings while giving up six hits, one earned run, four walks, and he had three strikeouts. The other earned run on the afternoon went to freshman right-hander Tanner Witt.

Nonetheless, the trio of Witt, Palmer Wenzel, and Lucas Gordon, rounded out this game for the Longhorns with just one run allowed in the final three innings.

With the bats, it was designated hitter/infielder Ivan Melendez and redshirt senior outfielder Mike Antico that came up big for the Longhorns. Melendez was big throughout this weekend series. And in this win over Kansas, he registered three hits in five at-bats, two runs, and one run batted in.

Melendez wound up posting seven hits, four runs, and three RBI’s, in the last two days alone.

Meanwhile, Antico was big for Texas as he registered two hits and one walk in five trips to the plate. He also had one run, three RBI’s, and no strikeouts on the afternoon.

As a team, Texas had 14 hits and no errors in this game. They also left just seven runners on base, which was the same amount they had when they scored seven runs in the April 2 win over the Jayhawks.

Kubichek moves his record on the season to 3-2 following this win over the Jayhawks. On the season in total now, Kubichek has registered a 2.91 ERA and 32 strikeouts in 34.0 innings pitched.

Texas now moves its record on the season to 20-8 (7-2 Big 12) with a three-game winning streak in store after this weekend series sweep of the Jayhawks. Next up for the Longhorns on the diamond is a meeting in a one-game weekday series with Texas A&M-Corpus Christi on April 6.