Texas Baseball: Horns look to stay alive in Big 12 Tourney vs. OK State

In a critical game at a paramount point of the Big 12 Tournament, No. 2 ranked Texas baseball and head coach David Pierce (also named the conference’s Coach of the Year) get to take on head coach Josh Holliday and the upstart four-seed Oklahoma State Cowboys. In a wild Big 12 Tournament thus far, Texas got mostly good pitching and is currently riding a two-game winning streak.

The Big 12 Tournament did not start off in strong fashion for the Longhorns on the diamond, who fell short to the eight-seed West Virginia Mountaineers in their first game of the festivities. That 5-1 loss to West Virginia immediately put the Longhorns’ chances to get the Big 12 Tournament crown on life support.

Yet, Texas responded strongly when they needed to, in facing the rival Oklahoma Sooners on May 27 to the tune of a convincing 4-1 win behind the arm of redshirt junior starter Tristan Stevens. Texas then had a rematch against the Mountaineers on the night of May 28 to try and get revenge on their loss from the first game of the Big 12 Tournament for this squad.

Texas baseball gets strong outing from LHP Pete Hansen

And that’s exactly what the Longhorns delivered entering the weekend. Texas got a big 3-2 win over the Mountaineers behind a two-run bottom of the sixth and a strong performance from redshirt freshman left-hander Pete Hansen, who got his eighth win of the season. Hansen gave the Longhorns 6.2 solid innings on the mound, with just two earned runs on six hits, with an impressive nine strikeouts.

At this point of the season, Hansen has just one loss to his record. He was stellar for the Longhorns when called upon this season.

To get to this point, the Longhorns could not lose following their opening game loss to West Virginia. They had to get one win over the five-seed Oklahoma, and another one in a revenge game against the eight-seed West Virginia.

Now, they’ll have to down their most difficult opponent yet in the four-seed Oklahoma State. The Pokes are undefeated in the Big 12 Tournament thus far, also having knocked off West Virginia and Oklahoma to get here.

First pitch between top-seed Texas and four-seed Oklahoma State in Oklahoma City, OK, is set for 12:30 p.m. CT. If Oklahoma State takes this game, then Texas will go home empty-handed. If Texas is able to upend the Pokes, then there will be one more meeting between these two teams before division two in the Big 12 Tournament is decided.