College baseball notebook: Surprising Longhorns are tied for 1st nearing halfway point of SEC play

Texas has a new coach and a new conference, and two of its everyday starters are out with injuries. And on Monday, the team picked to finish eighth in the Southeastern Conference was tied with Arkansas for first place as league play reaches the halfway point this week.

The Longhorns (26-4, 11-1) turned in one of their best performances of the season over the weekend in Austin while sweeping Georgia, their first over a top-three team in more than six years. Rylan Galvan punctuated the series Sunday with a walk-off home run in the bottom of the 10th inning for a 4-3 win.

"I respect the league so much and respect the game so much. My own personality will not allow me to get too fired up about it, but certainly will take it," coach Jim Schlossnagle said. "These kids believe in each other. They root for each other. It's a fun dugout to be in."

Schlossnagle took over at Texas for the fired David Pierce after an ugly parting with rival Texas A&M. Schlossnagle led the Aggies to the College World Series finals last June, losing in three games to Tennessee, and a day later Texas announced his hiring.

The Longhorns lost their season opener to Louisville in extra innings and then reeled off 17 straight wins. They’ve swept five weekend series after taking three games from Georgia, and they’ve won eight straight in SEC play.

They haven’t missed a beat without right fielder Max Belyeu and third baseman Adrian Rodriguez. Belyeu, the 2024 Big 12 player of the year and the Longhorns’ leading hitter (.358), injured his thumb making an awkward catch against Missouri on March 28 and could miss extended time. Rodriguez (.326) was hit by a pitch in the same game and hasn’t played since because of an undisclosed injury.

Texas is second nationally in ERA (3.04) and hits allowed per nine innings (6.76), and its offense is scoring 7.4 runs per game with Will Gasparinoi (11 homers, .684 slugging) and Galvan (10, .775) providing the power.

The Longhorns play at Kentucky this weekend and host Auburn and Texas A&M before they travel to Arkansas. They don’t play Tennessee.

Arkansas (30-3), Texas and LSU (30-3) are the consensus top three teams in the D1Baseball.com and Baseball America polls.

The Razorbacks bumped Tennessee out of the No. 1 spot. They’ve won a program-record 11 straight SEC games after sweeping Missouri. Tennessee, which got a combined no-hitter from Liam Doyle and Dylan Loy in a 10-0 win over Texas A&M on Friday, dropped the last two games of the series at home.

LSU (30-3) moved in behind Texas after sweeping Oklahoma on the road.

Arkansas put together its highest-scoring SEC weekend in program history in the sweep of Missouri, winning three seven-inning games by a combined 51-9. The Razorbacks won 21-3 on Saturday and swept a doubleheader 14-4 and 16-2 on Sunday. The 51 runs were scored over 18 innings since Arkansas, the home team, didn’t bat in the bottom of the seventh innings.

The Razorbacks have won a program-record 11 straight SEC games. Missouri (11-20, 0-12 SEC) is out to its worst-ever start in conference play.

UCLA’s 15-2 mercy-rule win over San Diego on Friday gave John Savage 700 victories in 20 seasons with the Bruins. He’s second all-time in wins at the school, trailing Gary Adams, who had 984 from 1975-2004. UCLA had its nine-game win streak end in Sunday’s 4-3 loss to the Toreros.

Atlantic Coast Conference-leading Clemson (30-5, 9-3) swept California on the road. The highlight was a six-run first inning Saturday that featured Collin Priest’s grand slam and solo shots by Jacob Jarrell and Josh Paino. The Tigers won 13-3 in seven innings and 4-3 Sunday to complete a sweep. … Iowa (20-10, 12-3), second in the Big Ten behind UCLA, had its 10-game conference win streak end with a 5-4 loss at Northwestern on Sunday. … Big 12-leading Kansas (27-6, 9-3) continues its best start to a season in a program history. The Jayhawks swept UCF on the road and have won nine straight. … Lehigh’s 36-1 win over Delaware State on April 1 marked the third time this season a team has scored that many runs. Indiana State and Rhode Island were the others. Before this season, no team had scored that many since 2022.