Texas State Ends Season with 7-4 Loss to Army
AUSTIN, Texas ? A late-inning rally wrote the ending for the Texas State baseball team’s 2009 season with a 7-4 loss to Army Saturday afternoon in the elimination game of the NCAA Championship Tournament at UFCU-Disch Falk Field. The Bobcats conclude the season with a 41-17, while the Black Knights improve to 35-20.
“You have to get in this situation to experience it and you have to experience it to execute,” Texas State coach Ty Harrington said. The Bobcats made their fourth appearance in the Championship Tournament and its first since the 2000 season this year.
In a fighting attempt to stay alive in the tournament, Texas State took a 1-0 lead in the first inning. On two outs, Paul Goldschmidt doubled to right center and Keith Prestridge notched an RBI single through the right side in the next at-bat for the score.
Two innings later, Goldschmidt drew a walk to lead off the third and Spenser Dennis gave Texas State a 2-0 lead with a base hit to shallow right field.
Army connected in the bottom of the third to plate their first runner on a solo home run from Joey Henshaw. In an attempt to turn a double play in the bottom of the fourth, an error at first base allowed Kyle Fleming to score and the Black Knights tied the game.
A scoreless fifth went by, but Texas State took the lead again in the top of the sixth when Jason Martinson launched a long triple off the right center wall and scored on an overthrown pick-off attempt. In the seventh, the Bobcats stretched the margin to 4-2, rattling off a pair of hits to score what would be the team’s final run.
Meanwhile, Army came alive for five runs off a three hits capitalized on a pair of errors to steal the edge. A pair of base hits were separated by a throwing error from the field to send across the first two runs and tie the game. David Darnell singled through the right side to follow up the rally and back-to-back walks that followed gave Army a 5-4 game. Andy Ernesto notched a sacrifice fly for the next run and base hit to centerfield from Henshaw closed out the scoring inning.
Texas State managed just seven hits in the game with Goldschmidt and Dennis leading the pack with two apiece.
“Our offense has been key for us this season,” Harrington said. “We normally separate ourselves with our offense, but we did not do that today.”
Army managed seven hits as well, led by a 2-for-4 outing from Henshaw.
Brian Borski pitched 6 1/3 innings for Texas State, allowing just two runs, one of which was earned off four hits to close out the season. Senior Lance Loftin was tagged with the loss and shifts to 3-1 in his final season.
Tyler Anderegg earned the win for the Black Knights and Kevin McKague picked up his sixth save with the effort from the mound.
“We will take things from here, the lessons we learned and move on,” Harrington said. “The only thing we can do is learn and grow from our experiences.”
Post-Game Quotes: Game 3 of NCAA Baseball Austin Regional
Army 7, Texas State 4
Saturday, May 30, UFCU Disch-Falk Field
Texas State Head Coach Ty Harrington
Opening Statement
“I thought Army pitched well. Our offense has been the key to what we’ve done all year long and being able to separate ourselves from opponents in these games. We weren’t able to separate ourselves yesterday or today. I think a little bit of it goes to the pitching performance of the guys Army put out there. I thought Army was a tremendously well-coached team.”
On Texas State’s season
“What these guys did for the university was tremendous and they deserve applause. We built them a new stadium. We set a record for wins, and we were a two seed for a regional, which I still think we deserved. A lot of tremendous things helped us get to this point and really and truly to the credit of the players, it was about them and what they were capable and able and did as a team this year. I’m proud and pleased. I’m disappointed for two reasons. I’m disappointed for them that the season is over, because they wanted to keep winning. They really felt like they could get to the championship game this morning when they woke up. And selfishly speaking, I’m disappointed because I don’t get to coach them again this year.”
On learning from this experience
“We have some young guys that will be ready for it. What we will take out of the weekend is a comfort level of participating in tournaments like this. You have to get to this point to experience it. You have to execute at this level. We weren’t able to execute late in both games. In the future, we’ll work and I’ll do a better job of preparing them for the moment. We’ll take some things and information out of this. You’re not very smart if you let it beat you twice, so we’ll take some information out of this and make some changes and some additions that will help us.”
On where they go from here
“We’ll go home and the staff and I will sit down and talk about what we need to do to be prepared. Experience is valuable. A lot of times you watch guys with senior teams, and they win championships with older teams. Experience comes into play. So now that we’ve gotten into this tournament, hopefully our experience will help us in the future.”
Texas State first baseman Paul Goldschmidt
On Texas State’s season
“It was a fun year. We did some good things. We set a lot of records. Obviously this weekend was disappointing. Like Coach Harrington said, we have a lot of young guys coming back who have done some great things for us, so hopefully we can move forward.”
On his teammates
“I’m proud of the job the guys have done this year. It didn’t work out for us this weekend. We lost some tough games, but overall for the year, we couldn’t ask for anything better.”
On today’s loss
“It was tough, but I think we didn’t play well in either of these games. We didn’t put the game away when we were ahead like we were able to do this season. We missed some opportunities throughout the game. I don’t think we hit as well as we should have. We really didn’t deserve to win either of these games, because we didn’t play how we have the entire season.”
Texas State right fielder Spencer Dennis
On the Bobcats’ season
“Bringing in a new stadium was a big deal for us. We broke a lot of records and that was fun. It was really fun playing with these guys.”