Texas Baseball: Horns blowout another opponent, advance to Supers

The roll that No. 2 ranked Texas baseball is on at the moment is no joke. Texas is thoroughly dismantling teams to start out the postseason, which is hopefully a sign of more positive things to come. Head coach David Pierce has witnessed his team destroy each of the three teams they faced over the weekend in the Austin Regional. Texas was the top seed in the Austin Regional, which seemed like it was over in the blink of an eye.

It all started out for the Longhorns in the Austin Regional with a meeting with the four-seed Southern Jaguars. That opening game that pitted Texas and Southern together didn’t go too well for the latter of those two teams. Texas downed Southern in shutout fashion to start off the Austin Regional, and they never really looked back.

Another sizable victory in their second game of the weekend moved the Longhorns onto the final, which was played on the night of June 6. The second game for the Longhorns on the diamond in regionals last weekend came against the two-seed Arizona State Sun Devils.

Following their dominant win over the Sun Devils on June 5, Texas was set to take on the three-seed Fairfield on June 6. But not even Fairfield could challenge the host in this round of Regional games. Texas managed to down Fairfield in the final game of the Austin Regional by the final score of 12-2.

Pete Hansen gets it done on the mound again for Texas baseball

That double-digit win over Fairfield arrived at a good time for the Longhorns, so they can get their arms rested for Super Regionals. The win over Fairfield went to redshirt freshman left-hander Pete Hansen, his ninth on the season. Hanson now owns a record of 9-1 on the campaign to date.

Hansen was on the mound for the Longhorns for 6.2 innings, giving up one earned and one unearned run on the night. He also struck out a whopping 13 batters and gave up six hits. Hansen didn’t allow a single walk in his work on the mound against Fairfield.

With the bats, the Longhorns were dominant from the very start. Texas already had 10 runs on Fairfield by the middle of the third inning. Two runs and two runs batted in on the night for Zach Zubia contributed to the efforts with the bats. But Douglas Hodo III really helped to power the Longhorns’ run-scoring effort on the night.

Hodo III had a three-run triple in the top of the third inning, which is what gave the Longhorns that double-digit lead in the first place. Hodo III finished the night with four RBI and one walk.

Zubia and Hodo III were part of the nine hits and 12 runs that were provided by the bats from Texas on the night.

This was a well-rounded effort from the Longhorns to beat Fairfield and move onto the next stage of the postseason. Texas downed Southern, Arizona State, and Fairfield (in that order) by a combined margin of 28 runs. And they allowed just five runs in the process.

Texas is now on to likely host a Super Regional series at Disch-Falk Field in Austin next.

The surging Longhorns will now await their fate for Super Regionals as the rest of the Regional games wrap up on June 7. Texas now carries a record of 45-15 following their trio of wins in the Austin Regional last weekend.