TCU stumbles in second Big 12 elimination game against Texas

Playing its fourth consecutive elimination game, TCU stumbled in the first inning and couldn’t recover in a 9-3 loss to Texas that ended the Horned Frogs’ bid to repeat as Big 12 tournament champions.

Freshman left-hander Haylen Green surrendered three runs in the first inning, and reliever Charles King gave up a three-run homer to Texas catcher Michael Cantu in the fifth that broke open the second game of a semifinal doubleheader Saturday night.

In the first game, Mitchell Traver struck out eight in seven innings to lead a 9-2 victory that forced the second game.

TCU (42-16) needed two wins against Texas to advance. The Longhorns (37-21) will play for the championship Sunday against Oklahoma State, which beat West Virginia 4-3 in 10 innings Saturday.

TCU ended a 3-2 week at Bricktown Ballpark, improving its bid for a national seed. The regular-season co-champion Horned Frogs entered Saturday’s second game at No. 5 in RPI, and they already had a strong case to land one of the eight seeds and home-field advantage in the first two rounds of the tournament.

“I feel like we’ve done what we’re supposed to do throughout the course of this season, regular season, and the conference tournament to put ourselves in the position that we want to be in,” coach Jim Schlossnagle said. “We’re really excited to get home, sleep in our own bed, practice on our own field and get to the most important time of the season.”

The host sites for the NCAA regionals will be announced Sunday night. The bracket and national seeds will be announced at 11 a.m. Monday. TCU is hosting a watch party at 10:45 a.m. at Schollmaier Arena.

The regional round begins Friday with 16 four-team, four-day, double-elimination tournaments.

TCU won three straight after a tournament-opening loss to Kansas and came close to pulling off a run out of the elimination bracket. The second game was a one-run contest after Josh Watson’s sacrifice fly and Evan Williams’ RBI single cut the Texas lead to 3-2 in the second.

“We really needed to test our toughness,” said third baseman Elliott Barzilli, who had nine hits in the tournament for TCU. “We got a good test, and we can learn from it and get ready for when it’s really important.”

The one-run margin in the second game held until the fifth inning, when Patrick Mathis singled with two outs to put two runners on for Cantu. The No. 8 hitter, batting .192 entering the game, homered to left-center on the first pitch from King for a 6-2 lead.

King was working his third inning after taking over for Green with a runner on, a 1-2 count and no outs in the third.

Green allowed three hits and three runs in the first inning, complicated by his late throw to second base on a sacrifice attempt that put two runners on. After another sacrifice advanced the runners, he gave up a sacrifice fly and two singles.

TCU left the bases loaded in the eighth after plating a run on the second of back-to-back errors at shortstop, cutting the lead to 8-3. Mathis homered in the ninth for Texas.

TCU also trailed in the first inning of the first game after Traver gave up a leadoff homer to Mathis. But he dominated after that, matching career highs with eight strikeouts and seven innings pitched.

Zach Humphreys had an RBI triple, and Ryan Merrill had a two-run single in a four-run first inning that gave Traver (3-1) a big cushion he didn’t waste. His performance was the fourth consecutive strong start by a TCU starter this week.

“Every time you put on the jersey, you’re trying to win a ballgame,” Traver said. “It doesn’t matter what position you’re in. Everybody on this team knows that. As long as we still have games to play, we’re going to try to win them with everything we’ve got, and I thought we did that.”

Nick Lodolo, Jared Janczak, Brian Howard and Traver were 3-0 with a 1.29 ERA, five walks and 31 strikeouts in 28 innings in Oklahoma City. They are the four starters TCU will use when the NCAA regional round begins Friday.

Humphreys’ RBI triple was his second of the tournament. It scored Austen Wade, who reached on a fielding error by Texas second baseman Bret Boswell, to tie the score 1-1.

Cam Warner brought him home on a ground ball to shortstop, and after a walk and a single, Ryan Merrill doubled in two runs for a 4-1 lead.

Wade tripled in the second inning and scored on Humphreys’ sacrifice fly for a 5-1 lead. That was four RBIs in the tournament for Humphreys, a freshman who started three games as the designated hitter and one at catcher for the Frogs this week.

The Frogs made it 6-1 in the fourth with an RBI single from Evan Williams, who started in right field in place of Austen Wade, who played in center field for Nolan Brown. Brown left Friday night’s game in the second inning after hitting his head in a collision at second base.

Williams walked with one out, reached third on Wade’s single and scored on a wild pitch in the sixth inning for a 7-1 lead.

Wade tripled to drive in a run and scored on the same play via an error in right field for a 9-1 lead in the eighth.

“I think we made a lot of big strides this tournament,” Barzilli said. “Even though we didn’t get the ultimate goal, winning the tournament, I think we can take a lot out of this and build off of it and use it for momentum.”

This story was originally published May 27, 2017 at 4:55 PM with the headline "TCU stumbles in second Big 12 elimination game against Texas."