Texas baseball demolishes Texas A&M-Corpus Christi for first win

A total team effort notched head coach David Pierce and Texas baseball their first win of the season, which came during the home opener at the friendly confines of UFCU Disch-Falk Field in Austin on Feb. 21. Texas topped the Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Islanders in a one-game midweek showdown at the Disch by the dominant final score of 12-2.

The win over the Islanders moves the Longhorns to a record of 1-3 (0-0 Big 12) on the season after it got swept in the College Baseball Showdown in Arlington, TX, last weekend to open up the 2023 campaign.

It’s hard to overstate how important this win could be for Texas. This is the type of game we needed to see from the Longhorns to show that this team can click on all cylinders before the non-conference schedule ramps up again a few days down the line.

Texas was led by a stellar performance on the mound from the 6-foot-4 redshirt sophomore right-hander Lebarron Johnson Jr. In the first start of his collegiate career, Johnson pitched a career-high five innings, only allowing one earned run and three hits.

Johnson also struck out eight and left a few runners stranded during his five quality innings of work on the mound in this one.

There were some uncomfortable moments for Johnson early in this game, including a second-inning homer he gave up to junior Tre Jones for the Islanders. But Johnson calmed down after the first couple of innings of this game and only allowed one hit and no earned runs after the top of the second.

Lebarron Johnson Jr. and Jalin Flores lead Texas baseball to its first win of 2023

Four Longhorns pitchers also combined to allow just one earned run and three hits in the last four innings of the game to hold the Texas A&M-CC offense to a half-dozen hits and two runs on the night.

The bats also came up huge for the Longhorns in this one. Middle infielders Jack O’Dowd and Jalin Flores led the way for the Texas bats. Flores notched his first career hit and his first home run in the same swing of the bat in the bottom of the second, which tied the game up at the time.

Along with that first-career homer, Flores registered two hits, two runs scored, and the one aforementioned run batted in.

This was a big game for Flores to get his game off the ground this season after a slow showing in the College Baseball Showdown last weekend.

Meanwhile, O’Dowd also had a huge night with the bat. He registered three hits in four at-bats, with three RBI, one run scored, and one triple.

The three hits and three runs scored both either tie or set career marks in a single game for O’Dowd over the course of his two years at Texas.

O’Dowd was also solid with the glove in this game. He led a Longhorns defense that looked world’s better than it did in the loss to the No. 10 Vanderbilt Commodores on Feb. 19. Texas didn’t register a single error in this game, after logging a whopping five against Vandy last weekend.

In fact, this is the first game of the season where the Longhorns didn’t register a single error.

The combination of steady pitching and solid defense kept the door open for Texas to really take control of this game in the middle innings. And that’s exactly what the offense did, with Flores and O’Dowd leading the way for a dozen runs, nearly a half-dozen extra-base hits, six walks, and a whopping 15 hits.

Without a doubt, this was the type of offensive outing that should be able to give the Longhorns a spark with a critical upcoming stretch of games during the non-conference slate.

Next up for Johnson, Flores, and the Longhorns is a three-game weekend series at the Disch against the Indiana Hoosiers out of the Big Ten. Then, it is a massive midweek showdown that lies on tap against the No. 1 ranked LSU Tigers exactly one week from today at the Disch.