Texas stays alive in College World Series with impressive game two victory

Texas' Preston Clark, second from right, celebrates his home run against LSU in the second inning of Game 2 of the best-of-three NCAA College World Series baseball finals, in Omaha, Neb., Tuesday, June 23, 2009. (AP Photo/Ted Kirk)

You almost knew it had to play out like this. When two teams dominate the College World Series tournament the way the LSU Tigers, and Texas Longhorns did, there was no chance one team or the other was going to sweep the best of three series. There just had to be a game three.

After letting LSU rally from two down in the ninth inning yesterday, the Longhorns made sure the controlled the game from beginning to end.

Texas scratched across the game’s first run thanks to small ball execution and a bit of porous defense from the Tigers. Third-baseman Michael Torres lead off the game with a four pitch walk, and advanced to second when catcher Micah Gibbs threw the ball away attempting to pick Torres off. Torres advanced to third on a Travis Tucker ground out, and was driven home on a Brandon Belt single.

Texas hit yet another solo home run in the top of the second, their sixth in the last two games, courtesy of Preston Clark, and the Longhorns took a 2-0 lead. LSU got a run back in the bottom of the inning thanks to singles by Jared Mitchell and Leon Landry, and an error by Brandon Loy.

In the third inning, Texas added all the insurance runs they’d need, first on another solo home run by Russell Moldenhauer, who hit his third homerun in two games, after hitting just one home run during the rest of the season. Cameron Rupp followed that with a double, and two batters later Connor Rowe chased Tigers’ starting pitcher Ryan Bird with an RBI double of his own. Nolan Cain came on in relief, but could not retire Preston Clark, who drove in Rowe with a single, making the score 5-1.

Texas starting pitcher Taylor Jungmann, who played the goat in relief in game one of the series, pitched a gem in game two. The freshman phenom threw a complete game giving up just five hits, while striking out nine, and the only run scored against him was unearned.

The ninth inning for the Tigers saw none of the drama of a day ago. Jungmann did allow Gibbs to lead off the inning with a single, but Mikie Mahtook followed him by striking out swinging, and Mitchell grounded out to second, moving Gibbs to second. Jungmann balked Gibbs over to second, but with the cushion his team provided him, he was able to settle down and strike Leon Landry out swinging on a 2-2 pitch

The Longhorns’ victory means that the College Baseball season will last at least one more day, as the two teams will meet Wednesday night at 6:00 PM in the game that will decide the National Champion