Longhorns lose lead, fall to Tennessee 7-5 in extra innings at SEC tournament
AUSTIN (KXAN) — Top-seeded Texas let a lead slip away and bowed out of the Southeastern Conference baseball tournament early, falling to Tennessee 7-5 in 12 innings Thursday at Hoover Metropolitan Stadium in Hoover, Alabama.
The Longhorns led 4-0 into the fifth inning, but the Volunteers chipped into the Texas lead and tied it up 4-4 by the end of the sixth. Texas starting pitcher Ethan Walker did a nice job in his first-career start, going 4.1 innings with three strikeouts, allowing one earned run on one hit.
Longhorns head coach Jim Schlossnagle said Walker didn’t travel with the team for most of the SEC season, but in the past three weeks, he’s been someone who throws a lot of strikes, and they came in useful Thursday.
“In the summer, we were looking for bodies. We needed lefties,” Schlossnagle said. “We needed strike throwers, and Coach (Max) Weiner had his eye on Ethan as a guy who could be deceptive, and here he is, starting in Texas’ first SEC game against a school from his home state.”
It became a battle of the bullpens after Walker left. Tennessee starting pitcher Liam Doyle, the SEC pitcher of the year, was chased after 3.2 innings, allowing four runs on six hits. Thankfully for the Vols, they had Dripping Springs native Brandon Arvidson. He struck out nine Longhorns in 5.1 innings to help get the game to extra innings.
Tennessee’s bullpen late in the game was a little bit better than the Longhorns’. Gavin Kilen hit a solo home run off of Texas reliever Max Grubbs to give the Vols a 5-4 lead in the 10th, but the Longhorns took advantage of an errant pickoff throw by Arvidson to get the tying run on third base in the bottom half. Kimble Schuessler then drove in the run with a single to tie the game at 5-5.
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Kilen came up big again for the Vols, this time against SEC freshman of the year Dylan Volantis, with a 2-run double to the centerfield fence in the 12th. It ended up being the difference as Vols reliever Nate Snead got the next three Texas hitters to fly out.
Volantis was saddled with the loss for Texas, allowing two runs on two hits with four strikeouts and a walk.
The new format of the SEC tournament is a 16-team single-elimination bracket, so the Longhorns are out. They won’t play again until the regional round of the NCAA tournament, which they’ll host despite losing early in the tournament. Texas is 42-12 overall and won the SEC regular season title with a 22-8 record, so they didn’t need to win in the tournament to impress the tournament selection committee.
Schlossnagle gave an example of his 2015 team at TCU losing its first two games in the conference tournament that rebounded to make it to the College World Series. Losing in a conference tournament, while not ideal, isn’t going to break a team.
“It will be whatever we make of it,” he said. “We’ve got to get home because we’ve got work to do to prepare for next weekend.”
Texas was presented with the regular season championship trophy before the game.
Tennessee advances to the semifinals, and they’ll take on either Oklahoma or Vanderbilt on Saturday.
The tournament selection committee will reveal its picks for the national field on Monday.
