Texas Baseball: Fifth Inning Offense Keeps Longhorns Perfect

The Texas Longhorns hosted the Sam Houston State Bearkats in hopes of staying perfect on the season. Pete Hansen would earn his first win.

Texas Longhorns took the field for their ninth game of the season looking to stay perfect ahead of their trip back to Houston. The Longhorns will participate in the Shriners Hospitals for Children College Classic. This will be the team’s first test taking on the 11th ranked LSU Tigers and 6th ranked Arkansas Razorbacks. They will wrap up the weekend against the Missouri Tigers.

As far as the Tuesday night game against the Sam Houston State Bearkats, it was bleak early on. Texas gave up an unearned run in the top of the first, Pete Hansen would settle down. He went five innings for the Longhorns, surrendering just two hits while striking out six batters.

In the bottom of the fifth inning, the offense was finally able to break though against the Sam Houston State pitching staff. Murphy Stehly drove in the first run. The Longhorns had the bases loaded, Stehly hit into an RBI fielder’s choice driving Eric Kennedy home. After finally tying the game, Austin Todd stepped to the plate with an opportunity to get the team head.

With runners on second and third, in stepped Zach Zubia with a big opportunity to get the pitching staff some breathing room. There isn’t another bat the team wants at the plate than Zubia, he singled to right field to bring two more runs across the plate.

Hansen went from being on the hook for the loss to relying on the bullpen to close out the game for the win. Kolby Kubichek came in to the game, pitching 2.1 innings. He would be the beneficiary of some good defense behind him.

Andre Duplantier II came into the game in the eighth to close the door on the game. He would pitch 1.2 innings to earn his first save of his Texas career. The save also earned Hansen his first win in his collegiate career. Texas improved to 9-0.