Baylor Baseball Hangs Tough But Comes Up Short To No. 5 Tennessee

[Calderone, Max]

BAYLOR ATHLETICS COMMUNICATIONS – Feb. 18, 2024

Baylor Baseball Hangs Tough But Comes Up Short To No. 5 Tennessee
Five newcomers make their Baylor debut in 11-5 loss
For more information contact: Max Calderone, 254-265-1639, Max_Calderone at Baylor.edu<mailto:Max_Calderone at Baylor.edu>

ARLINGTON, Texas – Baylor baseball (0-3) battled No. 5 Tennessee (2-1) to an 11-5 loss Sunday night in the final game of the 2024 Shriners Children’s College Showdown at Globe Life Field in Arlington.

Despite jumping out to a 2-0 lead and trailing just 6-5 after three innings, the Vols’ bats proved to be too much for the Bears to overcome as they scored in six consecutive frames to pull away from BU.

Five new Bears made their Baylor debuts, including freshman catcher Brayden Buchanan, redshirt junior outfielder Kade Fletcher, junior right-handed pitcher Will Glatch, freshman lefty Mason Green and freshman southpaw RJ Ruais. Green and Ruais combined to give BU 3.1 impressive innings in their first-career action out of the bullpen, allowing just one hit and one run with a pair of strikeouts between the duo.

THE RUNDOWN
It was Baylor that jumped out to a quick lead, as junior outfielder Enzo Apodaca scorched a line drive up the middle to get things started and then wheeled around to score on senior outfielder Hunter Simmons’ RBI double to start the bottom of the first. Simmons would later score on fifth-year senior infielder Mason Greer’s RBI fielder’s choice as the Bears took a 2-0 lead into the second inning.

UT struck back with a three-run home run off Baylor starter Jared Matheson, but BU would respond in the home half as senior catcher Harrison Caley hit his first-career home run, a solo shot, to knot the score at 3-3.

In the third, a two-run triple and sacrifice fly gave the Vols a three-spot, but junior outfielder Ty Johnson split the gap for a two-RBI triple and got the Bears back within one at 6-5.

That’s as close as Baylor would get though, as Tennessee added two more in the fourth and another in the fifth to go ahead 9-5. Threatening for more, the freshman southpaw Green entered out of the bullpen with the bases loaded and nobody out but was able to retire the side in order to avoid further damage.

The Vols added a run in each of the next two innings, extending their lead to 11-5, and held off any hopes of a Baylor comeback with six-straight scoreless innings of relief.

HIGHLIGHTS
• Baylor falls to 1-2 all-time against Tennessee.
• BU still owns an above-.500 record at tournaments sponsored by Shriners Children’s, at 8-7 all-time.
• Eight Bears pitchers combined for 10 strikeouts, marking the third time this season and 23rd time in the Mitch Thompson era that BU has eclipsed double-digit punchouts.
• Five newcomers made their Baylor debuts in freshman C Brayden Buchanan, redshirt junior OF Kade Fletcher, junior RHP Will Glatch, freshman LHP Mason Green and freshman LHP RJ Ruais.
• Green and Ruais combined for 3.1 innings of relief allowing just one hit, one run and striking out two.
• Buchanan collected his first-career hit, an infield single.
• Junior OF Ty Johnson became the first Bear to record a multi-RBI game in 2024 with a two-run triple.
• Junior OF Enzo Apodaca posted his first two-hit game as a Bear.
• Senior C Harrison Caley hit his first-career home run.
• Junior INF Hunter Teplanszky extended his team-leading on-base streak to nine games, dating back to last season.
• Senior OF Hunter Simmons has a six-game on-base streak, dating back to last season.
• Redshirt junior RHP Drew Leach made his first appearance for the Bears since May 26, 2021, after suffering a season-ending injury in 2022 and playing a season at Alvin CC in 2023.

STAT OF THE DAY
5 – Baylor scored five runs in the first three innings against No. 5 Tennessee, and five Bears made their Baylor debuts.

QUOTABLE
Head Coach Mitch Thompson
On his team competing throughout the weekend…
“We did compete, there’s no question, but we do have room to improve. The disappointing thing about tonight is we were playing such a good opponent with such great physical skills and talent, their athletes are big-time dudes, and you can't help them. You can’t make silly mistakes defensively and we gave them too many opportunities that ended up costing us. We did compete, and that’s to be expected. We just have to get over the hump. We’re playing good teams and we’re learning a lot about where we have to go and how much better we have to get. Work is ahead of us and we have to try to get better every day.”

On getting some freshmen experience in their collegiate debuts…
“We got some guys out there and they handled themselves well for their first times. Mason Green coming in the ballgame with the bases loaded and nobody out, for him to pitch out of that was fantastic. I thought RJ [Ruais] threw the ball well out of the bullpen. Those will be two good left-handed arms for us that can help us. And Brayden Buchanan getting his first start, I thought he handled himself well. It’s disappointing to leave here 0-3, there’s no question about it, but we’ll keep growing.”

Junior OF Ty Johnson
On the positives from the weekend…
“I think the positive that we can take out of this weekend is that we competed. We can go into the rest of the season having been battle-tested. We were thrown right into the fire and we competed our tails off against some of the best teams in the nation. I’m proud of us for that and I’m excited to see what this team can do the rest of the season.”

On maintaining the offense late into games…
“We’ve just got to keep our energy up. I think that we’re capable of being a great offensive team, averaging seven, eight runs per game. We’ve just got to stick to our approaches, not get too big or try to do something different whenever the other team responds.”

WHAT’S NEXT
Baylor (0-3) opens its home schedule with a Tuesday afternoon tilt against Lamar (2-1) with a 4 p.m. first pitch at Baylor Ballpark, the first of a nine-game homestand for the Bears.

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 (Baseball, Football)
Department of Athletics | Baylor University
C: 254-265-1639

[signature_590430712]<http://baylorbears.com/>

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.baylor.edu/pipermail/localmedia/attachments/20240219/a059be89/attachment-0001.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image001.png
Type: image/png
Size: 11694 bytes
Desc: image001.png
URL: <http://mailman.baylor.edu/pipermail/localmedia/attachments/20240219/a059be89/attachment-0001.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: BU03 Box Score.pdf
Type: application/pdf
Size: 46320 bytes
Desc: BU03 Box Score.pdf
URL: <http://mailman.baylor.edu/pipermail/localmedia/attachments/20240219/a059be89/attachment-0002.pdf>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: 2024 Season Stats.pdf
Type: application/pdf
Size: 377873 bytes
Desc: 2024 Season Stats.pdf
URL: <http://mailman.baylor.edu/pipermail/localmedia/attachments/20240219/a059be89/attachment-0003.pdf>