Texas's season ends after blowout loss to Louisiana 10-2

Three-seed Texas baseball and head coach David Pierce saw their season come to an end in the College Station Regional on June 2 following an elimination game loss to the two-seed Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns. Despite a quality start from Ace Whitehead, Texas fell way behind Louisiana in the late innings to take the loss by a score of 10-2.

Texas baseball's 2024 campaign ends after College Station Regional loss to UL

Louisiana plated a whopping seven runs in the top of the eighth inning to pull away from the Longhorns and to stay alive in the College Station Regional this weekend. Before that offensive outburst from Louisiana in the top of the eighth, Texas was very much in this game behind 6.2 quality innings on the mound from Whitehead.

Texas was down 2-1 after the game's first seven innings.

In his nearly seven innings on the mound in this game, Whitehead allowed just two earned runs on seven hits, six strikeouts, and one batter walked for Louisiana. While Whitehead allowed only two runs, he still took the loss since he didn't get much run support from Texas's offense.

The turning point of this game was the top of the eighth inning, just after Texas pulled Whitehead for Charlie Hurley. Hurley allowed six earned on five hits while striking out two Louisiana batters.

Texas's bats struggled to produce much run support for the pitching staff in the last two games of the College Station Regional. A solid pitching performance for the Longhorns from the entire staff in the second regional game and from the starter Whitehead against Lousiana in this elimination game was squandered by sluggish bats and poor defense.

Since the winners' bracket loss in extras to the No. 3 overall seed Texas A&M Aggies on June 1, Pierce's squad managed just four runs over 20 innings. Texas also had a cataclysmic three errors in the 11-inning loss to the Aggies on June 1.

The loss to Louisiana ends Texas's postseason run in the College Station Regional after just three games. Pierce and the Longhorns finish the 2024 season with a record of 36-24 (20-10 Big 12).

This season proved extremely disappointing for Pierce and Co. Texas was expected to contend for a Big 12 title and potentially host a regional, as a top-20 ranked team in the major preseason polls.

But the Longhorns finished the regular season unranked and without a Big 12 regular season and/or tournament title. Texas also snaps its streak of consecutive super regional appearances at four years.

This is the first time since 2019 that Pierce and the Longhorns haven't made it to super regionals.

Texas enters the postseason with more questions than answers. In the last two seasons, the trajectory of the program has been on the downswing. Fair or not, a lot of the blame for the results from the last two years will be placed on Pierce.

The way this team looked this postseason was very uninspiring. Questions have to be asked whether Pierce is the right guy for the job, given the way the program is trending now with Texas entering the gauntlet that is the SEC for the 2025 campaign.

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