It took until the bottom of the fifth inning for No. 12 Texas Longhorns to end the fierce pitching duel between senior pitcher Jared Spencer and Santa Clara senior pitcher Brandon Gomez.
Testing Gomez, the Texas bats pounced on the opportunity when the pitcher’s arm was showing fatigue in the fifth inning, allowing Texas to put its first two runs on the board.
Sophomore third baseman Casey Borba slammed a homerun and a late run sealed the Longhorns’ 4-2 victory over the Santa Clara Broncos Friday night.
Making his fourth start on the mound for the Longhorns, Spencer took some time to get comfortable, opening the game with a wild pitch, walking a batter and allowing a single. But Spencer got in a groove, only allowing one more hit down the stretch to end his 87 pitch day, with 55 strikes for eight strikeouts and his second win on the year.
“I’m pretty proud of myself for what I’ve done so far,” Spencer said. “I’m also proud of the team. I think just going back each and every week, focusing on one game at a time and being able to have fun.”
Junior infielder Jalin Flores did not appear to struggle against Gomez, hitting a pair of doubles on the Broncos, with his second double paving the way for junior catcher Rylan Galvan and junior outfielder Max Belyeu to score and put the Longhorns up by two.
“He’s obviously been a great player here for two years and didn’t get off to the greatest start, but has put in a lot of work with (assistant coach Troy Tulowitzki) on some adjustments,” head coach Jim Schlossnagle said. “He’s a marquee player in the country, doing what he’s supposed to.”
Not getting the right pitch on his first two at-bats against Gomez, Borba led off the Longhorns in the bottom of the sixth inning. Now facing Santa Clara’s reliever, Borba captured his second home run on the year, dropping it towards left center field and adding to the Longhorns’ lead.
“Got a good pitch to hit and hammered it, that’s kind of the name of the game,” Borba said. “You got to take advantage of the mistakes.”
Santa Clara freshman pitcher Andrew Habermann loaded up the bases for the Longhorns. Habermann could not close the inning out versus Texas’ hit leader, walking Belyeu for his fourth consecutive batter and giving Texas an easy run.
Junior pitcher Max Grubbs earned his third save of the season, replacing Spencer in the sixth. Getting a spark off Grubbs, the Broncos got two hits off the reliever with one of them being an RBI in the sixth. Grubbs let up one more RBI single in the final inning which proved to be the Broncos’ final run of the game.
“Santa Clara is really well coached. Rusty Filter is one of the best coaches in the country and we got Mark Marquess over there, one of the greatest coaches in the history of our sport,” Schlossnagle said. “It will be a long weekend for us, we got work to do.”
Texas returns to the UFCU Disch-Falk Field for game two against Santa Clara tomorrow at 2 p.m.
