By Jerry Briggs
Special for The JB Replay
Carson Tinney crushed a grand slam in the bottom of the eighth inning as the fourth-ranked Texas Longhorns averted a fourth-straight loss to UTSA, downing the Roadrunners 11-8 Tuesday night at UFCU Disch-Falk Field.
With the victory, the Longhorns beat the Roadrunners for the first time since 2020.
UTSA and Texas did not play from 2021-2024. Last season, the Roadrunners won all three games off the Longhorns in Austin, including two in the NCAA playoffs.
In the rematch, the two met on a muggy Tuesday night in Austin. The Longhorns jumped on the Roadrunners early, scoring four runs in the bottom of the first.
Undeterred, the Roadrunners retaliated with one run in the second and six in the third to take a 7-4 lead. Garrett Gruell highlighted the third-inning outburst with a pinch-hit, three-run homer.
The Longhorns tied it in the bottom half, scoring three times, with Maddox Monsour’s two-run home run making it a 7-7 ballgame.
In the seventh, UTSA broke up a battle of the bullpens when Diego Diaz ripped an RBI double — his fourth hit of the night — to push UTSA into an 8-7 lead.
Texas answered in a big way in the eighth. Facing Sam Simmons, the Longhorns caught a break.
Casey Borba led off with a pop up in front of the mound, but Simmons dropped the ball.
Flustered, Simmons walked Monsour to put two men aboard with nobody out. From there, Presley Courville sacrifice bunted with Borba moving to third and Monsour to second.
UTSA coach Pat Hallmark had seen enough. He went to the bullpen and brought in Connor Kelley, one of his hottest pitchers, who promptly walked Texas’ leading hitter, Aiden Robbins.
Tinney, one of the Longhorns’ leading power threats, was next up. On a 1-1 count, he drilled a ball over the left wall that traveled 483 feet and took one hop to an adjacent tennis center.
Hard-throwing Thomas Burns entered the game to pitch the ninth for the Longhorns, and he notched the save with a 1-2-3 inning. Freshman Brody Walls (2-0) earned the win.
Walls entered the game in the fifth to shut down a UTSA rally and went on to work three and two thirds of an inning. He gave up one run on one hit — the Diaz double — with one walk. Walls struck out five.
Simmons (7-4), charged with two runs on one hit in one inning, took the loss.
Diaz, a 5-10 junior from Sharyland High School in the Rio Grande Valley, led the Roadrunners at the plate with four hits. He went four-for-four, scored twice and drove in two.
In the second inning, he belted a solo home run down the right field line. Diaz added singles in the third and the fifth and then drove in the go-ahead run in the seventh with a double.
Andrew Stucky also had multiple hits, going two for four with two RBIs.
Records
UTSA 33-15
Texas 36-10
Coming up
UTSA at Memphis, Friday, 6 p.m.
UTSA at Memphis, Saturday, 2 p.m.
UTSA at Memphis, Sunday, 1 p.m.
Notable
UTSA closes its regular season with three games at Memphis this weekend, and then next week with a Tuesday night home game against Texas State, followed by three at home against UAB.
Texas, with the win over UTSA, pushed its lead in the all-time series to 27-9. At the same time, Texas is only 2-3 against Pat Hallmark-coached UTSA.
In 2020, Hallmark’s first season with the Roadrunners, the Longhorns beat the Roadrunners 6-2 before the pandemic wiped out the rest of the year.
Last season, the Roadrunners famously went 3-0 against the Horns in Austin.
They won 8-7 in 12 innings last March during the regular season. In the NCAA playoffs, they won 9-7 and 7-4 on consecutive days against the tournament’s No. 2 overall seed to clinch the Austin Regional title.
Despite Tuesday’s loss, the Roadrunners figure to have a good shot at making the NCAA tournament for the second straight season.
Right now, they have a two-game lead in the American Conference regular-season race with six to play, including three this weekend at Memphis.
Hallmark says winning the regular-season title in the American would “go a long way” toward boosting his team’s chances of making the 64-team field.
The Roadrunners also could make the NCAA by winning the American’s postseason tournament. The American championship is scheduled May 20-24 in Clearwater, Fla.