College Baseball 360 » Preston Clark

Top College Baseball Moments Of 2009 #3

Sean Stires — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 17:01:48 +0000

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The Texas Longhorns played 61 games in 2009 before their trip to the College World Series. In those games they hit a total of 39 home runs, but Omaha was much more agreeable to Augie Garrido’s squad.

After averaging just .63 home runs a game in those 61 contents the Longhorns exploded for 14 longballs in their six games at Rosenblatt Stadium – an average of 2.3 a game.

What caused the sudden surge?

Russell Moldenhauer led Texas with 4 HR and a 1.000 Slg.% at the CWS.

Texas DH Russell Moldenhauer’s explanation was simple “We’re not playing at Disch-Falk (the Longhorn’s home field),” Moldenhauer said after belting a pair of solo shots in UT’s 7-6 loss to LSU in game one of the CWS Championship Series. Moldenhauer led Texas with 4 solo HR in his six games in Omaha after totaling just 15 hits in 38 games in 2009 prior to the College World Series (he was inured for much of the season).

The Longhorns needed every longball they could muster in Omaha. They scored 17 of their 36 runs at the CWS courtesy of home runs (12 of the 14 shots were solo,) Texas had just a .413 slugging percentage going into the College World Series, but they slugged at a .537 clip in their six games at Rosenblatt.

The home runs, along with a CWS-best 4.02 ERA in their six games, helped them overcome a.258 2-out batting average and .373 on-base percentage in Omaha. Their 2-out average ranked 6th in the eight team CWS field, while the OBP was last. However, only LSU’s .555 slugging percentage was better than Texas’ .537.

It’s also quite ironic that the team that led the nation with 104 sacrifice bunts (including an NCAA Tournament record with seven in a Super Regional game vs. TCU) in 2009 while hitting just a total of 53 home runs had more homers than any other team at the CWS. LSU was second with 13 Omaha home runs, but the other six College World Series participants managed a combined 18 HR in a total of 19 games at Rosenblatt.

All told seven of the Longhorn’s nine regulars hit home runs during their stay in Omaha. Here’s the breakdown with CWS HRs followed by each player’s final 2009 HR tally:

Russell Moldenhauer: 4/4 (Hit .350 with a slg% of 1.000 in 6 CWS games.)

Cameron Rupp: 3/11 (the 11 HR led Texas in ’09. Tied w/Keyes w/6 CWS RBIs.)

Kevin Keyes: 2/9 (Added two doubles & tied for team-leading w/6 RBIs.)

Connor Rowe: 2/8 (Had 7 total hits, including two doubles at CWS.)

Travis Tucker: 1/3 (Rowe led Texas with a .400 avg. in Omaha.)

Preston Clark: 1/3 (Hit .381 in Omaha (8 hits), but his HR was his only extra-base hit.)

Michael Torres: 1/5 (He also had a pair of Omaha doubles.)

Neither Brandon Belt nor Brandon Loy homered in Omaha, but they had 3 and 4 RBIs respectively. Loy led the nation with 25 sac bunts in 2009, but he had just one in 6 games in Omaha. Belt had 11 sac bunts in ’09, including two at the CWS.

Other Top Moments Of 2009

4. Southern Mississippi Sweeps Florida To Go To Omaha

5. The Texas vs. Boston College 25-inning Game

6. Andrew Darr Comes Off The Bench & Comes Up Big For Arkansas

7. Virginia Beats Stephen Strasburg In Irvine Regional Opener

8. Washington State And Gonzaga End Long NCAA Tournament Droughts

9. Cal Poly Gets Its First NCAA Tournament Bid

10. Kansas’ Field of Dreams: Kansas, Kansas State & Wichita State All Get NCAA Bids

11. Stephen Strasburg Strikes out 17 in a no hitter

12. Ohio State’s Alex Wimmers No-hits Michigan

13. Kansas Sweeps #1 Texas

14. Bryce Brentz Has An April To Remember

15. Clemson’s Kyle Parker Does Double Duty

16. #1 Arkansas Beats #1 Arizona State

17. Rhode Island Beats Miami And Oklahoma State

18. Kansas State’s A.J. Morris beats Arizona State’s Mike Leake

19. North Carolina’s Mike Fox Wins His 1,000th Game

20. Illinois Shocks #1 LSU In Baton Rouge

21. Alabama’s Kent Matthes Launches Longballs

22. Freshman Levi Michael Starts In North Carolina’s Season Opener

23. LSU Opens The New Alex Box Stadium

24. Oregon Brings Back Baseball

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Top College Baseball Moments Of 2009 #5

Sean Stires — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 17:01:41 +0000

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The Texas vs. Boston College 25-Inning Game

(With the end of the year fast approaching, we’re counting down some of the top moments from the 2009 college baseball season. We’ll have one a day through New Year’s Eve.)

There’s not a lot to say about this game that hasn’t already been said. It’s probaly the most famous college baseball game of the decade, and arguably the most famous ever. The record setting game started on May 30th and it ended on May 31st.

Texas pitcher Austin Wood and BC hurler Mike Belfiore got the lion’s share of the attention for their epic relief performances that night, but there was a lot of other action (or inaction) in those 7-plus hours in Austin.

Here’s a By The Numbers look at the game that the Longhorns finally won 3-2:

Austin Wood

12 1/3…innings Austin Wood pitched without giving-up a hit. Wood entered the game with one out and a runner at second base in the 7th inning.

14…career-high strikeouts by Wood in his 13 total innings of work. He walked two batters and eventually gave-up two hits.

9 2/3…innings pitched in relief by Belfiore who entered the game in the 9th inning.

11…strikeouts and 129 total pitches Belfiore threw in what turned out to be the last college game of his career.

22…combined scoreless innings pitched by Wood & Belfiore…they totaled 25 strikeouts.

25.1…combined innings pitched by 8 other Texas & BC pitchers…they totaled 17 strikeouts.

Mike Belfiore

169…pitches thrown by Austin Wood in his scoreless, two-hit 13-inning effort.

683…total pitches thrown by a total of 10 Longhorn & Eagle pitchers.

96…degrees at first pitch at 6:02 p.m. Central Time.

78…degrees when the game ended at 1:05 a.m.

36…combined runners left on base-24 by Texas and 12 by Boston College.

33…putouts recorded by Texas 1B Preston Clark - A new NCAA single-game record.

Travis Tucker

12…at-bats each by Longhorns Travis Tucker & Michael Torres to set a new NCAA record.

3…combined hits by Tucker and Torres.

7…total players who had at least 10 official at-bats during the game.

37…total players who participated in the game – Texas head coach Augie Garrido and BC head coach Mikio Aoki each used all of their position players.

3…positions each played by BC’s Belfiore, Matt Hamlet and Andrew Lawrence.

192…combined plate appearances and 171 combined at-bats by the two teams-both single game NCAA records.

1988…the year of the previous longest NCAA postseason game – A 19-inning content between Clemson and Fordham in New Britain, CT.

1971…the year of the previous longest game in NCAA history – A 23-inning game between Louisiana-Lafayette and McNeese State.

46…scoreless half innings on the scoreboard in the game.

4…half innings in which either team scored a run. The Longhorns scored 2 in the 2nd inning and didn’t score again until Travis Tucker drove-in Connor Rowe in the top of the 25th inning in what turned-out to be the game-winner.

18…scoreless innings between runs – Boston College scored single runs in the 4th and 6th innings.

Kevin Keyes

1…home run hit in the game – A 2-run shot by Texas RF Kevin Keyes in the 2nd.

3…other Longhorns who played rightfield after Keyes left the game after just three at-bats.

2…times the scoreboard at Disch-Falk Stadium had to be reset during the game so the score could be displayed by innings.

1…standing ovation the two teams received at the end of the game.

Final Thoughts: After the game ended just after 1 a.m. Texas out-slugged Army 14-10 in a game that started later that night at 6p.m. Longhorn starter Taylor Jungmann gave-up 6 runs in just 3 1/3 IP. They used just four other pitchers in that game. Preston Clark’s game-ending grand slam gave the Longhorns the Regional title.

Texas hosted and beat TCU in two of three games at the Super Regional the following weekend. Austin Wood totaled 3 innings of relief in the last two games to help the Longhorns get to the College World Series.

In his six appearances after the famed 13-inning outing here are Wood’s numbers: 11 IP, 16 hits, 10 R, 8 ER, 3 BB, 8 K, with a 6.54 ERA. Wood made his nation-leading 41st appearance of the season when he toed the rubber for the last time in the final game of the CWS vs. LSU. Texas was the eventual national runner-up.

Mike Belfiore was drafted by the Arizona Diamondbacks with the 45th overall pick on the 2009 MLB draft. After signing he made 11 starts with 14 overall appearances for the single-A Missoula Osprey. He was 2-2 with a 2.17 ERA with 55 strikeouts in 58 IP.