Texas is felled by a late Missouri hit, remains on the hunt for its first baseball win

ARLINGTON — A double into the left-field corner at Globe Life Field on Saturday left the Texas Longhorns looking for a way to salvage their weekend.

Missouri's Dylan Leach plated the walk-off run in the Tigers' 6-5 win. It was Missouri's first win of the season but dropped Texas to 0-2. The Longhorns, who opened their season with a 3-2 loss to No. 8 Arkansas on Friday night, will play No 10 Vanderbilt in their final game at the College Baseball Showdown.

"We have a game tomorrow, so looking towards that right now," UT shortstop Mitchell Daly said. "Not the way, obviously, we wanted to lose, but we'll come back tomorrow and hopefully get a dub."

Texas never led on Saturday, but scored twice in the seventh inning to tie the game. Two innings later, Missouri got a leadoff infield single from first baseman Hank Zeisler. Texas reliever Sam Walbridge struck out the next batter, but Leach then drove a 2-0 pitch past a diving Jalin Flores at third base. Porter Brown was unable to cleanly field the ball in left field, and Zeisler scored from first base without a throw.

Leach's game-winning hit came after the Texas bullpen had extinguished two fires. In the seventh inning, Heston Tole inherited two runners but got out of the jam by inducing a fly out and a strikeout. One frame later, Chris Stuart entered the game and stranded a runner on third base with two strikeouts.

"Tole, we've got to kind of pitch backwards with him," Pierce said. "He doesn't have a big fastball, but he's very mature on the mound. He understands it. I thought Stuart was awesome."

Missouri finished with 14 hits. Two of those were home runs hit by Luke Mann and Ross Lovich. But the Tigers also employed a successful small-ball approach.

Over the first two innings, Missouri exploited the UT defense with three bunt singles. Each of those bunts — only one of which was laid down in a sacrifice situation — got a runner aboard who eventually scored.

Cam Chick twice successfully bunted himself onto base as the fifth-year designated hitter picked on Flores, a freshman, and Zane Morehouse. Additionally, Missouri outfielder Ty Wilmsmeyer reached on a bunt to third base.

Missouri exited the second inning with a 4-1 lead.

"We understand it, you've got two freshmen on the corners (Flores and first baseman Jared Thomas)," Pierce said. "It's always different when you're practicing than when you play it for real in this type of environment. So they'll either figure it out quickly or they won't be in there."

Said Daly: "That's something we've got to take care of. We've got to take care of the ball, get those outs, take those outs when they give them to us. Small-ball doesn't matter, it's on us to take care of the ball and we've got to make outs."

Key play: Duplantier's big hit

With the bases loaded in the fourth inning, Texas got a two-out, two-run double from designated hitter Jayden Duplantier. The hit should have cleared the bases, but the ball bounced into the UT bullpen and Rylan Galvan was forced to stay at third base. It was the first hit of Duplantier's collegiate career.

Galvan and Duplantier were later left on base.

The younger brother of UT pitcher Andre Duplantier II, Jayden was one of four freshmen in UT's starting lineup.

Notable number: 13

Saturday marked the 13th game that Texas has played at Globe Life Field since the start of the 2021 season. The Longhorns are 5-8 in those matchups. Texas has appeared in the 2021 and 2023 College Baseball Showdown showcases at Globe Life, plus a three-game series against Oklahoma in 2022 season and the 2022 Big 12 Tournament.

Up next: No. 10 Vanderbilt

Travis Sthele (3-1, 6.03 ERA in 2022) is Texas' scheduled starter on Sunday against Vanderbilt, which has not yet announced its starter. This will be the first matchup between these two powerhouse programs since the 2014 College World Series.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Missouri beats Texas in ninth inning of college baseball showcase