Texas Baseball: Horns get two-seed to host regionals in Austin

Despite a rather disappointing showing in the Big 12 Tournament over the weekend, the Texas baseball program and head coach David Pierce will still get to host regionals in Austin this year. Just because Texas didn’t live up to the billing in the Big 12 Tournament doesn’t mean that a tremendous regular season didn’t deserve a spot to host regionals.

Pierce and the Longhorns held the top seed in the Big 12 Tournament, and a No. 2 ranking nationally, heading into the weekend. But Texas got off on the wrong foot on the diamond with an opening game loss to the eight-seed West Virginia Mountaineers a few days back.

Texas did respond well to their loss to West Virginia heading into the weekend with a win over the five-seed and rival Oklahoma Sooners by a three-run margin. Then the Longhorns extended their winning streak in the tourney to two games with a revenge triumph over the Mountaineers to spur them onto the final set of games to decide division two.

What wound up being a large hurdle in the four-seed Oklahoma State Cowboys stifled the Longhorns what would amount to their final game of the Big 12 Tournament. Texas fell short to Oklahoma State in their fourth game of the tourney by a slim one-run margin.

That would send the Pokes to the final round of the Big 12 Tournament, where they would eventually fall short to the two-seed TCU Horned Frogs.

Texas baseball gets to host an Austin Regional on the road to the College World Series

Despite falling short in the Big 12 Tournament, the focus for Pierce and the Longhorns is now firmly on getting the job done in the Austin Regional. Texas will host a regional that also includes the Arizona State Sun Devils, Southern Jaguars, and Fairfield Stags.

Texas will start off the Austin Regional by facing Southern at Disch-Falk Field on June 4 at 2 p.m. CT. Arizona State will face Fairfield in the first meeting between those two teams in this regional on June 4 at 7 p.m. CT.

The games in the Austin Regional could extend all the way into May 7, depending on how many are necessary to decide the triumphant party in this four-team group. If Texas takes care of business on June 4 against Southern, they would take on the winner of Fairfield and Arizona State on June 5.

Texas is set to come into the Austin Regional with a record of 42-15 following the one-run loss to the Pokes over the weekend. Pierce and the Longhorns were rolling heading into the Big 12 Tournament, so they need to recapture that momentum before next weekend arrives.

The other Big 12 teams that at least made it into regionals this year in the road to the College World Series included TCU (host), the Texas Tech Red Raiders (host), and Oklahoma State. Teams like Oklahoma and the Kansas State Wildcats were left on the outside looking in this year for regionals.