By Jeffrey Cohen | Sports Writer
The energy was high on Friday night when Baylor dominated TCU 11-4 in front of Baylor Ballpark’s largest crowd since 2017.
The Bears could see their first series win over the Horned Frogs in seven years.
It came down to a rubber match in game two of the Sunday doubleheader after Baylor dropped game one by giving up five runs in the last two innings to fall 5-4. The Bears could not secure the series win as TCU (24-15, 10-8 Big 12) steadily beat Baylor (22-17, 9-9 Big 12) in the final game of the series, 10-2.
“Doubleheaders are hard,” head coach Mitch Thompson said. “They’re long, long, long, and when you get punched like that, you got to show back up, and we struggled to get back off on a good foot in the second game.”
The Horned Frogs created traffic in the first inning with two singles to put runners on the corners with one out. Chase Brunson, who drove in all five TCU runs in Sunday’s first game, put his team up 1-0 with an RBI single to right-center field.
The Horned Frogs extended their lead to two runs as Preston Gamster drove in Rob Liddington with an RBI double to left field.
“We go out there in the first inning, and they get one,” Thompson said. “We’re chasing it now, and it just snowballed on us.”
The Bears started to gain some momentum in the bottom of the fourth with back-to-back singles from redshirt senior first baseman Tyce Armstrong and freshman left fielder Dylan Perez to lead off. Redshirt freshman designated hitter Hunter Snow put the Bears on the board with a sacrifice fly to center field.
Baylor threatened one more time in the bottom of the eighth but stranded the bases loaded.
“We were in the game 3-1 and had a couple opportunities there, but not very many offensive opportunities,” Thompson said. “[We] didn’t swing the bat exceptionally well. Their guy kept us off balance and pitched pretty good.”
Following a sacrifice fly in the fifth to lead 3-1, TCU grabbed the reins tighter in the sixth. The Horned Frogs led off with a double and a pair of singles to make it a three-run lead. Gamster launched a two-run home run over the left-field fence to give his squad a commanding 6-1 advantage.
TCU tacked on four more runs in the top of the ninth with three RBI singles to take a 10-1 lead. The Bears scored one more run in the bottom of the seventh with an RBI double down the right-field line from sophomore second baseman Pearson Riebock. The series loss marks the Bears’ sixth straight dropped series to TCU.
“Every one of these are precious,” Thompson said. “We’ve got 30 [conference games], we’ve played 18 now, we’re 9-9. It was an opportunity to continue to move forward in the league.”
Baylor hits the road to face off against Sam Houston State (17-23, 7-11 Conference USA) at 6 p.m. Tuesday at Don Sanders Stadium in Huntsville. The game will be streamed on ESPN+.
