Texas baseball eliminated from Big 12 Tournament by No. 5 Kansas St

The run for the top-seed Texas baseball and head coach David Pierce in the Phillips 66 Big 12 Baseball Championship this week was short-lived. Texas was knocked out of the Big 12 Tournament on the morning of May 25 by the five-seed Kansas State Wildcats, falling short by a score of 6-0.

Pierce and the Longhorns couldn’t muster much of anything at the plate in each of their two games in the Big 12 Tournament. Texas only got two runs home in the last two games combined, as it was shut out by Kansas State in this elimination game on May 25.

Texas did have its fair share of chances to plate some runs throughout this game. But the Longhorns left a whopping nine runners stranded against Kansas State, despite only notching two hits on the day.

All told, Texas left 15 runners on base while scoring just two runs against the No. 8 Kansas Jayhawks and Kansas State in its two games in the Big 12 Tournament.

The lack of run support was a major issue for Pierce and the Longhorns these last two days. While Lucas Gordon and Lebarron Johnson Jr. gave the Longhorns two quality starts on the mound this week, they only received two runs combined in support of their efforts.

Top-seeded Texas baseball and David Pierce ousted from Big 12 Tournament by the Kansas schools

And what ultimately decimated the Longhorns on the mound was two outbursts as many games in the Big 12 Tournament in the top of the seventh inning. In its first game in the Big 12 Tournament on May 24, the Longhorns gave up a grand slam to Janson Reeder, which would bring in the game-winning run on one swing in the top of the seventh.

Kansas State also got the best of Texas’ pitching in the top of the seventh on this day, bringing home a whopping five runs to give itself a sizable late-inning cushion. Three of the five earned runs the Longhorns gave up in the seventh inning were credited to reliever David Shaw, who only saw 0.1 innings of work on the mound.

Texas was only able to muster one hit in the last couple of innings to try and respond to Kansas State’s five-run outburst in the seventh. At least the one hit came from junior outfielder Dylan Campbell, who tied the Big 12 record for the longest hitting streak at 35 games.

There wasn’t much else to write home about for the Longhorns in terms of their efforts offensively in the Big 12 Tournament.

Texas will now head back to Austin and await its fate for regionals this coming weekend. There was a shot that Texas had at hosting a regional in Austin heading into the Big 12 Tournament. But I would be hard-pressed to believe that Texas will be in a spot to host a regional after getting ousted in two games in the Big 12 Tournament the way it did by the Kansas schools this week.

D1Basebal already projected Texas to be on the outside looking in among the regional hosts ahead of the Kansas State game on May 25.

Pierce and the Longhorns now head into the postseason with a record of 38-20 (15-9 Big 12) following its disappointing showing in the Big 12 Tournament. Although, Texas can still hang its hat on winning a share of the Big 12 regular season title last week after coming up with an impressive sweep of the No. 6 West Virginia Mountaineers at home at the Disch.