Baylor Baseball Drops Tight Finale to No. 12 Texas, 7-6

[Calderone, Max]

BAYLOR ATHLETICS COMMUNICATIONS – April 16, 2023

Baylor Baseball Drops Tight Finale to No. 12 Texas, 7-6
Rigney logs career-high 9 K’s, Bears take season-high 12 walks in loss
For more information contact: Max Calderone, 254-265-1639, Max_Calderone at Baylor.edu<mailto:Max_Calderone at Baylor.edu>

WACO, Texas – Baylor baseball (13-23, 5-10) dropped a tight series finale to No. 12 Texas (26-12, 8-4) on Sunday afternoon by a score of 7-6 at Baylor Ballpark in Waco.

Junior RHP Will Rigney fanned a career-high nine and the Bears took a season-high 12 walks, but couldn’t come up with another late rally to topple the Longhorns. Every BU position player that appeared in the game reached base at least once via either a walk or a hit-by-pitch.

Since April 2, Baylor has either won its contest or lost by three runs or less in all nine games it has played.

THE RUNDOWN
The Bears got on the board first in the bottom of the second with a pair of runs to lead 2-0 after Rigney struck out four of the first eight he faced. Sophomore INF Austin Stracener took a bases-loaded walk, then freshman OF Caleb Bergman reached on a fielder’s choice and drove in a run to open the scoring.

In the top of the third, the Longhorns got one back, then took the lead in the top of the fifth with an RBI single and sacrifice fly. In the bottom half, the Bears loaded the bases thanks to three more UT walks, but were unable to cash in on the opportunity.

However, BU would take advantage of a big inning in the bottom of the sixth, as an error and three-straight singles, the last an RBI knock by Bergman, knotted the score at 3-3. Then, sophomore INF Hunter Teplanszky crushed a two-run double off the center field wall to put BU ahead 5-3.

Texas responded quickly with three runs of its own in the top of the seventh to go back in front, 6-5, then added a solo home run in the top of the eighth to extend the lead to 7-5. With the bases loaded, junior RHP Hambleton Oliver came up with back-to-back strikeouts to escape further danger and keep the Bears within striking distance.

Freshman INF Kolby Branch notched an RBI single in the bottom of the eighth to get BU within one, but was caught stealing to end the inning. In the ninth, junior RHP/OF Cole Tremain walked to lead off the home half, but was also caught stealing before the next two batters were retired to end the ballgame.

HIGHLIGHTS
• Every Baylor position player reached base via either a walk or hit-by-pitch.
• BU took a season-high 12 walks, eclipsing double-digit free passes for the second game in a row.
• The Bears struck out double-digit batters for the 18th time this season with 11 punchouts.
• Junior RHP Will Rigney collected a career-high nine strikeouts.
• Sophomore INF Hunter Teplanszky extended his on-base streak to 24 games and his hitting streak to 12 games with his sixth multi-RBI game of the year.
• Freshman OF Caleb Bergman tallied his third multi-RBI effort of the season.
• Freshman C Walker Polk extended his on-base streak to seven games.

STAT OF THE GAME
14 – Amount of walks and hit-by-pitches Texas surrendered.

QUOTABLE
Head Coach Mitch Thompson
On today’s game…
“It was a tight ballgame. It’s a game of inches and there’s lots of different things that both teams will look back at and say we gave them that or we gave them this. It goes both ways. This is frustrating, coming up one run short. I appreciate the guys’ effort. I thought they played really hard, competed really hard. They expected to win. We had a great crowd, so it was disappointing, but you have to give credit to Texas.”

On the team’s improvement…
“There’s no question, our guys are getting better. We played a good team, that’s a good ball club over there. They are used to winning, well coached, they do a good job and we were right there with them in every ballgame with a shot [this weekend].”

WHAT’S NEXT
Baylor (13-23) begins an eight-day stretch away from Baylor Ballpark where it will play four road games, starting at Sam Houston (22-15) on Tuesday, April 18, with a 6:30 p.m. first pitch at Don Sanders Stadium in Huntsville.

To stay up to date on all things Baylor baseball, follow the team on its official Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts: @BaylorBaseball.



-BaylorBears.com-


__________________________________

Max Calderone | Associate Director of Athletics Communications (BSB, FB, EQ)
Department of Athletics | Baylor University
C: 254-265-1639

[signature_3007809372]<http://baylorbears.com/>

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.baylor.edu/pipermail/localmedia/attachments/20230416/e005fad8/attachment-0001.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image001.png
Type: image/png
Size: 11693 bytes
Desc: image001.png
URL: <http://mailman.baylor.edu/pipermail/localmedia/attachments/20230416/e005fad8/attachment-0001.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: BU36 Box Score.pdf
Type: application/pdf
Size: 2731801 bytes
Desc: BU36 Box Score.pdf
URL: <http://mailman.baylor.edu/pipermail/localmedia/attachments/20230416/e005fad8/attachment-0003.pdf>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: 2023 BSB Season Stats.pdf
Type: application/pdf
Size: 405210 bytes
Desc: 2023 BSB Season Stats.pdf
URL: <http://mailman.baylor.edu/pipermail/localmedia/attachments/20230416/e005fad8/attachment-0004.pdf>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: 2023 BSB Conf Stats.pdf
Type: application/pdf
Size: 378621 bytes
Desc: 2023 BSB Conf Stats.pdf
URL: <http://mailman.baylor.edu/pipermail/localmedia/attachments/20230416/e005fad8/attachment-0005.pdf>