Though the UTSA Roadrunners have already beaten the Texas Longhorns this season, Saturday’s result at the Austin Regional was not one many saw coming midway through the game.
The Texas Longhorns baseball team will have an uphill battle to keep their season alive after Saturday’s wild finish at Disch-Falk Field against the UTSA Roadrunners in the Austin Regional.
In the winners portion of the bracket, Texas and UTSA fought for a chance to advance to the regional final on Sunday night but it was the Roadrunners who overcame a 6-1 deficit in the fifth inning to pull off a 9-7 win on the road over the No. 2 seed Longhorns. By blowing the sizable lead, Texas found itself on the wrong end of history, allowing UTSA to advance to its first-ever regional final in program history.
“I mean, it’s a huge moment. But obviously, before this season even started, we’re thinking about going to Omaha,” UTSA pitcher Braylon Owens told SEC Network after the game. “So we expected this. We’re not too surprised by it.”
UTSA has already beaten Texas this season, an 8-7 win in 12 innings on March 18. However, given the stakes and the lead the Longhorns had Saturday, this loss will certainly sting for a while if Texas’ season soon comes to an end.
“That is not some jack leg team that is just getting hot,” Texas head coach Jim Schlossnagle said after the game, per Kendall Rogers of D1Baseball. “They are junkyard dogs, and they’re a really good team.”
The Longhorns will now face No. 3 seed Kansas State in the elimination game at 2 p.m. CT on Sunday.
Seen by some fans as an afterthought school in other sports, UTSA baseball has now gone 2-0 against Texas in Austin this season and is on the verge of continuing to make program history. With a win Sunday night against the winner of Texas vs. Kansas State, UTSA would advance to the super regional.
Texas will have to beat Kansas State and then win two in a row over UTSA in order to advance.
“This is playoff baseball man. Everybody is fighting for their lives,” Schlossnagle said.
