No. 1 Baseball beats No. 17 Tennessee, 7-2 (original) (raw)

HOUSTON, Texas – No. 1 Texas Baseball battled to a 7-2 win over No. 17 Tennessee on Friday night at the Shriner's Children's College Classic at Minute Maid Park.

Pete Hansen pitched six innings and allowed just one run on five hits and picked up his second win of the season. He struck out five batters and issued only one walk.

Ivan Melendez went 2-for-4 with a double, a triple and two RBI, while Trey Faltine went 2-for-3 with a homer, one RBI and one run scored.

Tennessee opened the scoring in the top of the fifth inning with a solo home run to left field for the only run allowed by Hansen.

Faltine had an immediate answer, launching his own solo homer to left field to tie the game up 1-1 in the bottom of the fifth.

The Volunteers went to the bullpen in the sixth inning and the Longhorns took advantage, scoring three runs to take a 4-1 lead. The inning started with back-to-back doubles by Eric Kennedy and Melendez to drive in the first run. After a walk to put two runners on, an error allowed another run to score. Skyler Messinger drove in the third run of the inning with an RBI single through the left side.

Tennessee was able to get a run back in the top of the seventh inning but Luke Harrison came out of the bullpen to limit the damage to just one run.

The Longhorns again had an immediate answer, scoring three more runs in the seventh to extend the lead to 7-2. Melendez hit an RBI triple to drive in Douglas Hodo III, who singled to start the inning. Silas Ardoin hit a sacrifice fly to deep center and Murphy Stehly capped the inning with an RBI single up the middle.

Aaron Nixon was called out of the bullpen into a jam in the eighth inning, with two runners on and nobody out. He got out of the jam and finished the game with two total innings pitched and four strikeouts.