Inside Texas Today: Baseball rallies to top Oklahoma, Roschon Johnson on Jaydon Blue
Welcome to Inside Texas Today! Each weekday morning, Inside Texas Today will provide the latest from around the Forty Acres. This morning, IT Today looks at Texas baseball’s series win over the Oklahoma Sooners, capped by a comeback victory on Sunday to take the series, and comments from Roschon Johnson about Jaydon Blue.
Here’s the Monday, April 4, 2022 edition.
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“He’s definitely getting his feet wet”
Texas running back Roschon Johnson was available to the media on Saturday. One of the questions he fielded was about early-enrollee running back Jaydon Blue.
Blue elected not to play his senior season for Klein Cain High School. Going from not playing football to playing running back in tackle football three times per week has come with an adjustment period. So far, Johnson likes what he has seen from the young back, but still admits there’s some room for improvement.
“He’s definitely been swimming,” Johnson said. “It’s a lot to grasp when you come in as a mid-year, especially when you haven’t played a whole season. He’s definitely getting his feet wet, and I feel like he’s done a great job of taking the coaching that everybody has put on him, from us in the running back unit from me, Bijan (Robinson), Keilan (Robinson), and (Jonathon Brooks), we’ve given him a lot of insight and I feel like he’s taken advantage of it. But he’s still learning.”
Texas gets back to .500 in Big 12 play in a big way
After receiving a tremendous two-hit, eight-inning performance from Pete Hansen on Friday in a 7-1 win, Texas offered very little aside from two Silas Ardoin home runs on Saturday in a 4-2 loss to Oklahoma. That set up an important rubber match with the Sooners with a conference series at stake.
The chances of Texas getting that second win of the weekend appeared slim through the first six innings of Sunday’s contest. Oklahoma led 7-1 after six, with a three-run home run from Peyton Graham busting the game open. Every Longhorn pitcher to that point, from starter Lucas Gordon to relievers Luke Harrison and Marcus Olivarez, had surrendered an earned run.
But with the lineup Texas has this year, no lead is safe from a comeback like the one that started in the seventh. The first two Longhorns reached, bringing Dylan Campbell to the plate. He smacked a three-run homer to left to make it 7-4. Later in the inning, Murphy Stehly stayed scorching with a three-run shot of his own to tie the game at seven.
Longhorn relievers kept Oklahoma off the board in the seventh and eighth, setting up a pivotal ninth. That’s when the Texas offense took control of the series. Ivan Melendez singled Mitchell Daly home to give Texas the lead. Then with the bases loaded and down 0-2 in the count, Austin Todd, in his first game since injuring his shoulder at Texas State in early March, singled to score two. The next at bat, Daly doubled to drive in two make it 12-7 Longhorns.
The Sooners got one back in the ninth, but that was the only run they plated in their comeback attempt. Coy Cobb closed the door in the ninth to earn the win, and Texas left Globe Life Field with bragging rights and a 3-3 record in the Big 12.
