Texas A&M baseball earns a trip to the College World Series

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By Jerry Briggs
Special for The JB Replay

Smacked around early by the Oregon Ducks, the third-seeded Texas A&M Aggies rallied from a multi-run deficit for the second time in two days Sunday night, claiming a 15-9 victory for a two-game sweep at the Bryan-College Station Super Regional.

As a result, the Aggies won for the 49th time this season and earned a berth in the College World Series.

At one point in the second game of the Super Regional, A&M trailed by five runs against an Oregon team looking to win and force a third and deciding matchup Monday in the best-of-three series.

Aggies sophomore Kaeden Kent decided he didn’t want that to happen, so he belted a grand slam to highlight a nine-run seventh inning.

The Ducks figured prominently in their own demise, walking six and hitting a batter to fuel the outburst that left them trailing 13-8.

With injured star Braden Montgomery not available, the Aggies shuffled their lineup, moving pieces around and adding Kent, a sophomore from Lake Travis, to play second base. He finished three for five with five RBI.

Hayden Schott also enjoyed a big night, going four for four with four RBI. Schott belted a two-run homer in the eighth to make it 15-8.

A&M players will pack their bags in a few days for a trip to Omaha, Neb. They’ll play in the CWS for the eighth time in program history in search of the program’s first national title.

Records

Oregon 40-21
Texas A&M 49-13

Coming up

The College World Series is scheduled for June 14-24 at Charles Schwab Stadium in Omaha, Neb.

Notable

In the Super Regional opener on Saturday, the Aggies lost one of their best players to injury in the first inning and then rallied from a three-run deficit to beat the Ducks 10-6.

After the game, A&M coach Jim Schlossnagle said Braden Montgomery likely would be out for the season with a lower leg injury.

Oddly, the same sort of thing happened Sunday night, only this time the injury bug claimed one of A&M’s starting pitchers. Shane Sdao was relieved with one out in the bottom of the first after giving up a home run to Chase Meggers.

With Brad Rudis on the mound for the Aggies, the Ducks added round-trippers by Drew Smith and Anson Aroz to give them three homers in three consecutive at bats.

Super Regional: Aggies play for a berth in the CWS tonight

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By Jerry Briggs
Special for The JB Replay

Undefeated in the NCAA playoffs, the third-seeded Texas A&M Aggies will play the Oregon Ducks tonight at Blue Bell Park in Game 2 of the best-of-three, Bryan-College Station Super Regional.

A win would send the Aggies to the College World Series.

A&M opened the NCAA tournament last week by defeating Grambling (La.), 8-0 and then beating Texas 4-2 in 11 innings and Louisiana, 9-4. With the regional title in hand, Coach Jim Schlossnagle’s squad earned a berth in the next round against the Oregon Ducks.

The Aggies opened the Super Regional by rallying for a 10-6 victory over Oregon on Saturday afternoon. Aggies star Braden Montgomery suffered a serious injury to his lower leg in the first inning and is expected to be out for the season.

Records

Oregon 40-20
Texas A&M 48-13

Coming up

If Oregon wins tonight, a deciding Game 3 would be played on Monday. The time is to be determined.

Notable

In the wake of Montgomery’s season-ending injury, Texas A&M coach Jim Schlossnagle turned in a starting lineup for Game 2 of the Super Regional that included:

Jackson Appel at catcher, Jace LaViolette in right field, Gavin Grahovac at third base, Hayden Schott at designated hitter, Ted Burton at first base, Caden Sorrell in left field, Ali Camarillo at shortstop, Kaeden Kent at second base and Travis Chestnut in center field.

Shane Sdao is the starting pitcher.

NCAA Super Regional: Texas A&M rallies past Oregon after losing Montgomery to injury

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By Jerry Briggs
Special for The JB Replay

In the bottom of the first inning, the third-seeded Texas A&M Aggies started to brush up against some unwanted adversity when star outfielder Braden Montgomery limped off the field with a lower leg injury.

By the top of the second, starting pitcher Ryan Prager was pulled from the game in the midst of a four-run outburst by the Oregon Ducks. The bottom half of the second? A&M’s fortune was no better as a base runner was unceremoniously picked off at second base.

Fortunately for the Aggies, they had seven more innings to make amends, and they did just that, erasing what had been an early three-run deficit to post a 10-6 victory on Saturday in the opener of the Bryan-College Station Super Regional.

With the victory, A&M moved to within one win of a trip to the College World Series.

The Aggies showed significant grit and determination in Game One of the Super Regional against the Ducks. Right-handed reliever Chris Cortez pitched 5 and 2/3 scoreless innings for the victory. He allowed only two hits and walked two while striking out 10.

Closing out the game, lefty Evan Aschenbeck retired four straight batters. Combined, Cortez and Aschenbeck totally out-pitched the Ducks, who yielded 12 hits, walked nine and threw two wild pitches.

Records

Oregon 40-20
Texas A&M 48-13

Notable

Texas A&M coach Jim Schlossnagle said in the postgame that he thinks Braden Montgomery is out for the year.

Quotable

“Not sure I’ve ever been more proud of a team,” Schlossnagle said in his opening postgame remarks. “You know, emotionally, Prager goes out. Doesn’t have a great first inning. Then we battle back into it. And then, you know, the injury. I was telling these guys it’s the third time it’s happened to me in my career. Right at the tail end of the season, or in the postseason, you know, lost one of our best players. Happened at Tulane. Happened at TCU with Luken Baker. And then to get down 6-3. Just the emotions, that, I think, a lot of teams fold … Super proud of our club.”

Coming up

Oregon at Texas A&M, Sunday, 6:30 p.m. Game 3 of the Super Regional, if necessary, would be played on Monday.

Losing Montgomery

In the top of the first, the Ducks surged into a 2-0 lead against Aggies ace Ryan Prager on a two-run homer off the bat of Anson Aroz. The Aggies retaliated immediately against Ducks starting pitcher RJ Gordon.

Leading off, Gavin Grahovac walked. After Jace LaViolette flied out, Montgomery walked to put two runners on. Jackson Appel followed with an RBI single, scoring Grahovac and moving Montgomery to second base.

On the next play, Ted Burton singled to left field. Montgomery came around third and appeared to hesitate before breaking for home. As he started to slide, he turned his right foot just before he was tagged out by Oregon catcher Bennett Thompson.

Montgomery stayed down until help from the A&M staff arrived to place a boot on his foot and help him off the field. In the short term, the loss of a projected first-round choice in the upcoming Major League Baseball draft didn’t hurt A&M.

The Aggies won easily. But for a team with championship aspirations, the loss of their top offensive player could prove costly.

Montgomery entered the Super Regional leading the Aggies with a .322 batting average, a .733 slugging percentage and a 1.185 OPS. He ranks second on the team in home runs with 27 and leads in RBI with 85.

Suffering misfortune

Despite Montgomery’s early exit, the Aggies scored three runs in the bottom of the first and held a 3-2 lead. It didn’t last long. The Ducks continued to hit Prager in the second inning, starting a rally in the top of the second that led to four runs and a 6-3 lead.

Bouncing back

The Aggies didn’t let the early struggles get them down. They retaliated with one run in the third inning, three in the fourth and three more in the fifth. For the game, Jackson Appel and Hayden Schott both produced three hits. Appel scored twice and drove in two. California native Schott, one of a few A&M players from the West Coast, had three RBI.

NCAA Super Regionals: Texas A&M hosts Oregon today

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By Jerry Briggs
Special for The JB Replay

Based on seedings in the NCAA baseball tournament a few weeks ago, the Texas A&M Aggies will still need to win a few more games in order to live up to expectations as one of the best teams in the nation.

The third-seeded Aggies didn’t dominate every game they played last weekend in the regional round, but they did win three in a row in their home stadium to advance, just as everyone expected.

Their hitting may not have been as prodigious as they would have liked, but then again, they did enough things well on Olsen Field at Blue Bell Park to take down Grambling (La.), arch-rival Texas and Louisiana.

Once again, A&M will be favored heavily this weekend. The Aggies host the Oregon Ducks in the best-of-three Bryan-College Station Super Regional, hoping to utilize a home-field advantage to earn a berth in the College World Series.

In the Ducks, the Aggies will face a program that has overachieved in the postseason in each of the past two seasons.

Oregon came into the postseason with a modest RPI of 52nd in the nation. The Ducks went on to post a 3-0 record at the Santa Barbara Regional, marking the second-straight season that the program has advanced with a road sweep on the first weekend.

Entering play as the region’s third seed, they won 5-4 in 11 innings against San Diego, with Bryce Boettcher slamming a solo home run in the top of the 11th, followed by Ducks’ reliever Logan Mercado working the bottom half to secure the victory.

Oregon, feeling the momentum, rode pitching and defense to two more victories by narrow margins, clinching the regional. They posted back-to-back wins over host UC Santa Barbara, topping the region’s top-seeded Gauchos, 2-1 and 3-0.

Last year, Oregon won three straight in Nashville, beating Xavier, national No. 3 Vanderbilt and Xavier again to reach the Super Regional round. On the next weekend, matched against Oral Roberts and playing at home, the Ducks struck out.

They won the opener but lost the next two, falling short of a CWS trip.

Records

Oregon 40-19
Texas A&M 47-13

Probable starters

Oregon’s RJ Gordon (7-5, 4.73) vs. Texas A&M’s Ryan Prager (8-1, 2.53).

Schedule

Saturday: Oregon at Texas A&M, 1 p.m.
Sunday: Oregon at Texas A&M, 6:30 p.m.
Monday: (if necessary, time TBA)

Players to watch

For A&M, Stanford transfer Braden Montgomery was six for 15 with five RBI in three games at the NCAA Bryan-College Station Regional, including a home run in the series-clinching win against Louisiana. Montgomery, considered one of the top prospects in the upcoming 2024 MLB draft, leads the Aggies with a .322 batting average, a .733 slugging percentage and a 1.185 OPS. He ranks second on the team in home runs with 27 and leads in RBI with 85.

For Oregon, starting pitchers RJ Gordon, Grayson Grinsell and Kevin Seitter had back-to-back-to-back dominant performances at the Santa Barbara Regional. The three combined to go 2-0 with a 1.17 ERA while allowing just three runs on 13 hits. They struck out 19 and walked nine in 23 innings. In the opener, Gordon allowed three runs on six hits in 7.0 innings while leaving the game with a 4-1 lead

Notable

Texas A&M’s coach is Jim Schlossnagle. In his third year in College Station, he is 129-60 with the Aggies. Schlossnagle has led A&M into the NCAA tournament three straight years, including twice to the Super Regionals.

In 2022, the Aggies won a Super Regional at home, sweeping two games from Louisville. At the College World Series, they lost the opener but bounced back to win twice before bowing out with a 2-2 record.

Schlossnagle previously worked as a head coach at UNLV for two seasons and at TCU for the next 18. He took the Rebels to one NCAA tournament and the Horned Frogs to 15. With the Frogs, Schlossnagle led seven teams to the Super Regionals and five to the College World Series.

In both 2015 and 2016, Schlossnagle’s Horned Frogs eliminated the Aggies in the Super Regional round, the first time in Fort Worth and the next one in College Station.

Oregon’s coach is Mark Wasikowski. In his sixth year in Eugene, he is 165-89 with the Ducks. Wasikowski, tasked with matching the prowess of in-state rival Oregon State, has led Oregon into the NCAA playoffs four straight years.

Quotable

Braden Montgomery, on the difference between baseball in the Pac-12 and the Southeastern Conference:

“The biggest difference I see is the depth in the teams that we’ve played against. I feel like … some of the pitching staffs or some of the teams we’d see last year in the Pac 12, there’s just a bigger difference from the top and the bottom (in the standings).
Whereas, like they say, in the SEC it’s a gauntlet, where every team truly has the chance to beat any other team. Not to say that it’s not like that in the Pac 12, but it’s … (it has) different layers to it, I guess.”

NCAA Super Regionals: Can the underdog Purple Aces keep it going against the Tennessee Vols?

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Best-of-three NCAA Super Regionals in baseball open today. Here’s a schedule and a quick glance at the matchups:

Today’s games

Evansville (38-24) at No. 1 Tennessee (53-11)

Eye on the underdogs: The Wes Carroll-coached Purple Aces are the lowest-rated team in the Super Regionals. Seeded fourth last weekend at Greenville, N.C., they rolled behind DH Kip Fougerousse and OF Mark Shallenberger. Fougerousse had four HR and seven RBI in the regional. Shallenberger had the game-winning HR in Monday’s 6-5 win over host East Carolina.

That’s a fact: Christian Moore has hit 29 home runs to lead the Vols, who have hit 159 round-trippers as a team. Tennessee entered the tournament as the No. 1 overall seed.

UConn (35-24) at No. 8 Florida St. (45-15)

Eye on the underdogs: The Huskies entered the Norman Regional seeded third among four teams and proceeded to win with defense, winning three of four in the home park of the Oklahoma Sooners. INF Paul Tammaro, INF Bryan Padilla, 1B Maddix Dalena and OF Caleb Shpur all made key plays. UConn played error-free baseball until it committed its first error in the ninth inning of the final game.

That’s a fact: Former Texas basketball coach Tom Penders is the uncle of UConn baseball coach Jim Penders. Tom Penders played in two NCAA tournaments at UConn in the 1960s, including the 1965 College World Series.

Kansas St. (35-24) at No. 12 Virginia (44-15)

Eye on the underdogs: Kansas State finished 15-15 and tied for sixth with Kansas in the Big 12 regular season. The Wildcats followed with a 1-2 showing in the conference tournament. Last weekend, they registered one of the biggest surprises on opening weekend by sweeping all three games at the Fayetteville Regional. As K-State dispatched Louisiana Tech, No. 5 overall seed Arkansas and Southeast Missouri, Kaelen Culpepper emerged as the regional’s MVP.

That’s a fact: Texas Rangers reliever Josh Sborz played at Virginia under Cavaliers coach Brian O’Connor. O’Connor led Virginia to the College World Series title in 2015.

West Virginia (36-22) at No. 4 North Carolina (45-14)

Eye on the underdogs: Inconspicuous as a No. 3 seed at the Tucson Regional, the Mountaineers followed strong starting pitching to three straight victories. Derek Clark went the distance on opening day against Dallas Baptist and Tyler Switalski followed the next day by working into the eighth inning against Grand Canyon (Ariz). Sophomore Logan Sauve and junior JJ Wetherholt had three hits apiece in a clinching victory over Grand Canyon in the title round.

That’s a fact: The Mountaineers are making their first appearance in the Super Regional opposite the powerful Tar Heels, who are 35-3 at home this season. Heels outfielders Vance Honeycutt and Casey Cook are regarded as two of the top players in the conference.

Friday’s games

No. 15 Oregon St. (45-14) at No. 2 Kentucky (43-14)

No. 10 NC State (36-20) at No. 7 Georgia (42-15)

Florida (32-28) at No. 6 Clemson (44-14)

Oregon (40-18) at No. 3 Texas A&M (47-13)

Aggies claim the NCAA College Station Regional title

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By Jerry Briggs
Special for The JB Replay

The Texas A&M Aggies hit five home runs to smash through a 25-year-old record for homers in a season, building a big lead early and then rolling to a 9-4 victory over the Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns Sunday for the title in the NCAA College Station Regional.

A&M (47-13) swept through three games undefeated to win the regional. The Aggies will advance to Super Regional round next week against the Oregon Ducks, who won the Santa Barbara Regional.

A&M, as the No. 3 national seed, is expected to host Oregon in a best-of-three series for a berth in the College World Series.

Caden Sorrell, Braden Montgomery, Hayden Schott, Ali Camarillo and Gavin Grahovac all belted homers for the Aggies, who boosted their season total to 130 in 60 games. The previous school record was 128 in 1999.

Louisiana (42-20) battled to the end, scoring three runs in the bottom of the ninth before A&M closed it out. The Aggies beat Grambling 8-0 on Friday, downed Texas 4-2 on Saturday night and then took down Louisiana, the region’s second seed.

Earlier in the day, the Cajuns won 10-2 to eliminate the Texas Longhorns from the tournament.

Records

Louisiana 42-20
Texas A&M 47-13

Coming up

Oregon vs. Texas A&M next week in the Super Regional round.

Aggies break a 25-year-old team season home run record

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By Jerry Briggs
Special for The JB Replay

The Texas A&M Aggies have hit five home runs on Sunday night to break the school’s 25-year-old team season record. The Aggies have hit 130 on the season, beating the previous mark of 128 set in 1999.

With the Aggies playing the Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns for the title in the NCAA College Station Regional at Blue Bell Park, Caden Sorrell, Braden Montgomery, Hayden Schott, Ali Camarillo and Gavin Grahovac have all belted homers.

Sorrell and Montgomery went deep in the fourth inning, Schott hit one in the fifth, Camarillo in the seventh and Grahovac in the ninth. Montgomery has 27 for the year and Grahovac 22, which is an A&M freshman record.

Coming into the regional round of the NCAA tournament, the Aggies had hit 124 home runs as a team.

They didn’t hit any in an 8-0 victory over the Grambling Tigers on opening day Friday. They hit one on Saturday, by Sorrell, in a 4-2 victory over Texas.

With five against Louisiana, A&M now has 130 homers in 60 games. The 1999 squad that hit 128 featured Daylan Holt, who belted 34 that year for the school’s individual season record.

A&M is leading Louisiana 9-1 in the ninth inning. If the Aggies win, they advance to the Super Regional round next week.

Louisiana explodes past Texas to reach regional title round

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By Jerry Briggs
Special for The JB Replay

The Texas A&M Aggies will enter the title round of the NCAA Bryan-College Station Regional Sunday night as a prohibitive favorite against the Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns.

The Aggies are seeded third nationally and first in the region and will play for the third time this weekend in front of their boisterous home fans at Blue Bell Park.

A&M has won 34 and lost only three at home all year, so the paying customers will expect the Southeastern Conference powerhouse to beat the Sun Belt regular-season champions and complete a three-for-three sweep through the regional.

The regional’s second-seeded Cajuns, however, will not go home willingly.

Showing a determined resolve in playing through the losers bracket, Louisiana erupted for seven runs in the eighth inning Sunday afternoon en route to a 10-2 victory to eliminate the third-seeded Texas Longhorns.

The Cajuns lashed six hits during the outburst, including three-run homers by Jose Torres and Bryan Broussard.

Louisiana took a circuitous route to the regional finals. In Friday’s opener, the Longhorns beat the Cajuns 12-5. But on Saturday afternoon, they started their way back, knocking off the Grambling State (La.) Tigers, 12-5.

With the victory, they earned a rematch with the Longhorns, and they didn’t waste it. Louisiana produced 15 hits, including four for extra bases. When they needed a hit, they got it, driving in all 10 runs in two-out situations.

For the Longhorns, starting pitcher Ace Whitehead worked 6 and 2/3 innings and allowed only two runs. Texas had 10 hits, including two each by Will Gasparino, Rylan Galvan, Casey Borba and Max Schuessler.

But after losing 4-2 Saturday night to the Aggies, the Longhorns’ failed to generate much momentum against the Cajuns. Winners of 15 of their last 20 games, Texas couldn’t produce when it mattered, going 2 for 12 with runners in scoring position.

Records

Texas A&M 46-13
Louisiana 42-19
x-Texas 36-24
x-Grambling 26-28

Coming up

Louisiana at Texas A&M, Sunday, 7 p.m., in the regional title round. If Louisiana wins, a winner-take-all game between the two would be played on Monday. A Monday game time hasn’t been announced.

Texas A&M downs Texas 4-2 in 11 innings to cap an NCAA tournament thriller

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By Jerry Briggs
Special for The JB Replay

First, Texas A&M coach Jim Schlossnagle credited the Texas Longhorns. He also lauded his own players and then went into a discussion about how difficult it is to understand why certain things happen in a baseball game.

Finally, in remarks made at a news conference following his team’s dramatic NCAA tournament victory Saturday night, he tried to offer some perspective.

“We won a ballgame,” Schlossnagle said. “We didn’t win a championship. I mean, this team, as good a season as we’ve had, we haven’t won any championship. We didn’t win our league. We didn’t win our division. We didn’t win the conference tournament.

“So, we won a ballgame. It’s a big one. Any winners bracket game in a regional is a big one. But, we haven’t won anything yet.”

What Schlossnagle said was true.

At the same time, with a riveting 4-2 victory in 11 innings over the Longhorns, the Aggies took a big step toward their immediate goal of winning the NCAA Bryan-College Station Regional and advancing to the next round.

With the win, they are now one victory away from clinching a date in next week’s Super Regional.

A&M scored twice in the top of the 11th inning and then held on as reliever Evan Aschenbeck closed out the game in the bottom half. Maroon-clad fans at a jam-packed Blue Bell Park erupted in cheers and likely celebrated well into the night.

“There’s nothing like it,” Aschenbeck told an ESPN reporter, commenting on the fan support at A&M home games. “No words can even describe it. It’s awesome … I don’t think we could do it without the 12th Man.”

Kaeden Kent, facing UT reliever Andre Duplantier II, led off the 11th for A&M with a single up the middle. After Gavin Grahovac flied out, Jace LaViolette walked, putting runners at first and second base.

From there, UT coach David Pierce decided to make a change. He pulled Duplantier and replaced him with lefthander Chase Lummus. Braden Montgomery, one of the best hitters in NCAA baseball, faced Lummus first and popped up to the infield. But Lummus, at that stage, started to struggle with his command and walked Jackson Appel to load the bases.

The walk was costly as the next man up, Ted Burton, topped a soft grounder down the third base line. Texas third baseman Peyton Powell waited and waited, hoping it might go foul. But it didn’t, and at the last minute, he misplayed the ball allowing the go-ahead run to score.

Burton was credited with an RBI single. With Hayden Schott at the plate and the bases still loaded, Lummus threw a wild pitch, allowing another run to cross and make it 4-2.

In the bottom half of the 11th, the Longhorns couldn’t get anything going. Powell grounded out. Max Belyeu flied out and Kimble Schuessler ground out against Aschenbeck, who was credited with the win in 4 and 2/3 innings of shutout ball.

Texas took an early lead when Jared Thomas led off the bottom of the first with a solo homer. Thomas blasted the first pitch from A&M pitcher Ryan Prager over the left field wall. In the fifth, Caden Sorrell answered for the Aggies. In tying the score at 1-1, he hit a one-out, solo homer off UT starter Lebarron Johnson Jr.

In the sixth inning, the Longhorns retaliated when Schuessler made it 2-1 on another solo homer off Prager, this one coming in a dramatic moment with two outs.

After the run scored, fans in the stands fell silent. They stayed that way for a few innings until the Longhorns came unglued defensively in the eighth. Two infield errors led to a run for the Aggies, who tied the score again.

Aschenbeck started to get really tough at that juncture. He retired three straight in both the eighth and the ninth. In the 10th, he faced trouble when Will Gasparino led off with a walk and was sacrifice bunted to second.

Thomas grounded to the right side to move Gasparino over to third base. But that’s as far as he’d go as Flores, who hit a grand slam in UT’s 12-5 victory over Louisiana on Friday, popped up to end the inning.

In the head-to-head series between the teams, the Aggies have won six of the last seven meetings, including a 10-2 win in the 2022 College World Series, a 9-2 win earlier this season in Austin and now in a postseason game that keeps the Aggies on track to win the regional.

Next season, the Longhorns will join the Aggies in the Southeastern Conference.

Records

Texas 36-23
Texas A&M 46-13

Notable

The region’s second-seeded Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns won 12-5 earlier in the day to eliminate the No. 4 seed Grambling State (La.) Tigers from the tournament.

With the win, the Cajuns (41-19) advance in the losers bracket to play Sunday afternoon at 2.

They’ll play against Texas in a matchup of teams that are 1-1 in the regional. The survivor of that game will play a 2-0 Texas A&M squad at 7 p.m.

Flores grand slam paces Texas, sets up Longhorns-Aggies NCAA tournament game

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By Jerry Briggs
Special for The JB Replay

Trailing early and feeling some pressure, the Texas Longhorns erupted for three runs in the fourth inning and seven in the fifth on Friday night en route to a 12-5 NCAA tournament victory over the Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns at Olsen Field.

Kimble Schuessler had three hits and Jalin Flores from San Antonio Brandeis High School smashed a grand slam, advancing the Longhorns in the winners bracket of the Bryan-College Station Regional to play their longtime rivals, the Texas A&M Aggies, on Saturday night.

In the beginning, the regional’s third-seeded Longhorns looked a bit sluggish. The second-seeded Cajuns were taking it to them. Lee Amedee ripped a solo home run in the second. Trey LaFleur added a long solo shot in the third, staking Louisiana to a 2-0 lead.

At that point, some in the crowd at A&M’s home field started to join in with the Louisiana fans to cheer the Cajuns. There might have been a jeer or two for the Longhorns, as well. In response, UT answered with fourth-inning outburst to take charge of the game.

During the rally, they strung together five straight hits. Rylan Galvan had an RBI double and Dee Kennedy added a two-run single, lifting the Longhorns into a 3-2 lead.

In the bottom of the fourth, Flores made two nice plays in the field to choke off a Louisiana rally. On the first one, the Cajuns had runners at first and second base, and he fielded a ground ball in the hole.

Flores flipped a short throw to third for the first out, keeping a base runner out of prime scoring position.

Next, he figured into an inning-ending double play. On the play, Kennedy fielded a ground ball on the right side and threw to the bag at second, where Flores came across to touch for the second out. He promptly rifled a throw to first that beat Amedee by a half step to end the inning.

But with the Longhorns coming to bat in the top of the fifth and leading by only a run, they needed another rally and some more runs for breathing room against the Sun Belt Conference champions. A rally is what they got.

UT had the first four batters reach base, with Galvan drawing a walk to drive in a run. After Will Gasparino struck out, disaster struck for Louisiana when Cajuns shortstop Kalen DeBarge failed to field cleanly a ground ball that could have been a double play.

Instead, a run scored and everyone was safe, loading the bases again.

From there, Jared Thomas delivered with an RBI single to make it 6-2. With the bases still jammed, Flores stepped up and cranked his third grand slam and his 18th homer of the season, a blast that landed well behind the left field fence.

Suddenly, UT was leading 10-2 and cruising. For Flores, a first-team All Big 12 performer, it was his second grand slam in NCAA tournament play. He also hit one in last year’s NCAA tournament to help the Longhorns win the Coral Gables Regional.

Records

Louisiana 40-19
Texas 36-22

Coming up

Bryan-College Station Regional

Saturday — Losers bracket game between Grambling and Louisiana at 2 p.m. Winners bracket game between Texas and regional top seed Texas A&M at 8 p.m. A&M is seeded third overall in the NCAA tournament.