Dallas Baptist rallies to stun TCU baseball as Frogs face elimination game Sunday
TCU senior catcher Zach Humphreys had a simple message for his teammates following a gut-wrenching 8-6 loss to Dallas Baptist in the NCAA Regional on Saturday night.
“You’ve got to move on to the next game,” Humphreys said. “It’s a tough one. You’ve got to learn from it. No one is going to feel sorry for you. If we do what we want to do, we’ve got to win a lot of ballgames.”
TCU finds itself in a situation where it has to win three straight games in order to reach the Super Regional next weekend. TCU will play an elimination game against Oregon State at 1 p.m. Sunday at Lupton Stadium. If TCU wins, it’ll advance to face DBU at 6 p.m. Sunday. The Frogs must win that to force a winner-take-all matchup against DBU at 3 p.m. Monday.
Easier said than done, but TCU has done it before. The Frogs lost the second game of the 2015 NCAA Regional before rallying and making a run to the College World Series.
In order to replicate that sort of magic, TCU coach Jim Schlossnagle said: “We need a great starting pitching performance somewhere. If we’re going to do it, we’ve got a minimum of 27 innings to play, so we’re going to need that. What these guys talk about is writing your own story and here’s an opportunity to do that. I still have great belief in our club.
“It’s not going to be easy, but we’re certainly capable.”
Schlossnagle mentioned Johnny Ray and Charles King as possible starting options for Sunday.
The Frogs also must overcome the disappointment of Saturday’s loss. They were leading 6-2 going into the bottom of the seventh before the bullpen unraveled.
TCU reliever Drew Hill, who pitched a scoreless sixth inning, allowed two of the first three batters he faced to reach. Freshman left-hander River Ridings entered in relief and issued a walk to load the bases.
DBU’s George Specht then hit a grounder to the left-side that TCU third baseman Brayden Taylor couldn’t make a play on. Taylor was charged with an error as DBU scored a run to pull within 6-3.
DBU added a run on the next at-bat when Andrew Benefield singled through the right side. That ended Ridings’ night as TCU brought in freshman right-hander Luke Savage.
But Savage gave up a bases-clearing double to DBU catcher Christian Boulware. The Patriots took a 7-6 lead on the hit.
“I just wanted to get a pitch I could hit,” Boulware said. “He tried a slider early and then came back with fastballs. I was able to get the barrel to it.”
Savage struck out the next two batters, but the momentum had already shifted to DBU. DBU added one more run in the eighth on an error by TCU shortstop Tommy Sacco.
TCU, meanwhile, went down in order in the eighth and ninth against DBU left-hander Peyton Sherlin. Sherlin struck out four of the six batters he faced.
“He was outstanding,” DBU coach Dan Heefner said of Sherlin. “That’s as good as I’ve seen him.”
The final innings ruined what had been a promising night for TCU. Hunter Wolfe had a three-run home run in the fourth inning to give the Frogs a lead, and Taylor had a solo shot in the sixth. Starter Russell Smith allowed two runs on five hits with two walks and eight strikeouts over five innings. All of it went for naught.
DBU is now on the brink of reaching a Super Regional as it did coming out of Fort Worth in 2011. TCU is on the brink of elimination.
“We all know what’s at stake,” Humphreys said. “If we lose one more, our season is over. We’ll play with more edge and more focus. It kind of lights that fire under you. You’ve got to keep going.”
This story was originally published June 5, 2021 at 11:11 PM.
