A long rain delay on Sunday (June 12) didn’t stunt the momentum the No. 9 University of Texas Longhorns baseball team rode from the 4-0 lead they built against the No. 8 East Carolina Pirates in the third and final game of the Greenville Super Regional.
Austin NBC affiliate KXAN reported that UT did a lot of damage at the plate to bounce the Pirates from the postseason with an 11-1 win.
It’s the 38th time the Longhorns head to Omaha, Nebraska for the National College Athletic Association (NCAA) College World Series (CWS).
“Horns are hot!” redshirt senior Austin Todd said in a tweet. “See y’all in Omaha!”
KXAN reported that a pair of rain delays forced the game to be played late into the night.
The first delay lasted from 3 to 4 p.m. CT while the second was much longer, lasting as much as five hours, according to the station.
The Longhorns offense tacked on four runs during the short-lived lull in the severe weather to make things easy for starting pitcher Tristan Stevens, KXAN reported.
Ivan Melendez’s 32nd homerun (HR) of the season, a three-shot missile, set the tone for UT and was followed by an RBI single from redshirt senior Skyler Messenger, the station reported.
After the second rain delay came to pass, according to KXAN, the Longhorns resumed their offensive onslaught, with redshirt sophomores Trey Faltine and Silas Ardoin chipping in HRs of their own to what would become the team’s 11-hit outing.
According to a report published on the program’s website, the Longhorns claimed victory a little after 12:30 a.m. on Monday (June 13).
The report said that redshirt freshman Travis Sthele didn’t surrender any hits or runs in relief of Stevens to give redshirt sophomore Jared Southard the chance to seal the deal, which the latter did by fanning the final Pirates batter.
The CWS, which will begin on Thursday (June 16), is simply a Big XII reunion and probable Southeastern Conference (SEC) preview for the Longhorns with formal conference rival Texas A&M and longtime conference foe Oklahoma having also won their respective Super Regionals.
