The Washington Huskies can’t be beat by the Texas Longhorns. Coach Jason Kelly’s team won the series against the Longhorns in Austin on Saturday afternoon with a 5-3 victory.
The Huskies were aided by an early onslaught, putting up 3 runs in the first inning on a sacrifice fly from first baseman Jeter Ybarra who was coming off a 5 for 5 night on Friday, and a two-run home run from left fielder A.J. Guerrero, his first of the season.
Guerrero added a run batted in on a groundout in the third inning, as did designated hitter Michael Brown to give Washington a 5-0 advantage. The Longhorns chipped away at the lead, getting solo home runs from center fielder Will Gasparino in the third inning and shortstop Jalin Flores in the fourth.
Left fielder Porter Brown cut Washington’s lead to 5-3 in the sixth inning with an RBI single, but that would end the scoring. Starter Calvin Kirchoff earned his first win of the season, allowing 4 hits and those 3 earned runs over 6 innings while Sam Boyle tallied his first save of the season going the final 3 frames.
Yeah, it’s been a little bit of a slow start.
But it’s starting to feel like… pic.twitter.com/TBNhwLGGy7
— Washington Baseball (@UW_Baseball) March 16, 2024
Boyle gave up just 3 hits over the final 3 innings, but was outshined by Longhorns reliever Ace Whitehead, as he allowed just 1 hit over 7 innings after coming in for starter Cody Howard, who took the loss and fell to 2-2.
The Huskies moved to 6-7-1 with the win and will attempt to earn their first sweep of the season on Sunday, while the Longhorns fell to 10-8 with the loss.