No. 22 Baseball takes Kansas series with 8-1 win (original) (raw)

AUSTIN, Texas – No. 22 Texas Baseball beat Kansas, 8-1, to clinch the series win on Friday at UFCU Disch-Falk Field. Ivan Melendez hit his 28th home run to tie Kyle Russel for the program record for homers in a season.

The Longhorns (38-17, 13-10) will go for the series sweep of the Jayhawks and celebrate Senior Day on Saturday at 2:30 p.m. Texas will recognize 10 Longhorns before the game – Daniel Blair, Coy Cobb, Justin Eckhardt, Eric Kennedy, Ivan Melendez, Skyler Messinger, Marcus Olivarez, Murphy Stehly, Tristan Stevens and Austin Todd.

Eric Kennedy went 3-for-5 with two homers, three RBI and two runs scored, while Austin Todd was 3-for-4 with one RBI and one run scored. Skyler Messinger was 2-for-3 with two RBI against his former team.

Lucas Gordon pitched six innings and allowed just one run on five hits. He finished with six strikeouts and picked up his sixth win of the season.

The Longhorns jumped out to a 3-0 lead with five hits in the bottom of the first inning. Kennedy started the scoring with a solo homer to right field, his fifth of the season. Melendez then launched his 28th home run of the season, tying the Texas Baseball record for homers in a single season.

The third run of the inning came across after three-straight singles by Murphy Stehly, Todd and Messinger.

Texas scored one more in the second inning to take a 4-0 lead after Kennedy legged out an infield single to drive in Trey Faltine from third.

Kansas got one run on the board in the third but the Longhorns got it right back in the bottom half. Mitchell Daly lined a two-out RBI single to score Messinger and make the score 5-1.

Kennedy launched his second homer of the game in the fourth inning to extend the Longhorns' lead to 6-1.

Todd made the lead 7-1 with a solo homer of his own to lead off the bottom of the fifth inning. The final run of the game came across in the seventh on a sacrifice fly by Messinger.