If you ask me what my main takeaway from tonight’s rivalry game was, it was that my best friend from high school (Texas A&M starting catcher Mikey Hoehner) is without a doubt my favorite team’s worst nightmare. Heading into tonight’s game, he already had a two-run homer, and a stolen home plate under his belt from the last clash between the two schools in 2019 at UFCU Disch-Falk Field in Austin. No one does a better job at rising to this occasion than him, and tonight, his immediate impact on the rivalry was felt late into the game with a walk-off solo home run at the bottom of the 7th inning.
The 5th-ranked Texas Longhorns baseball team fell short to the unranked Texas A&M Aggies in their latest renewal of the storied rivalry 2-0 on the road at Olsen Field at Blue Bell Park in College Station. The only time when the Longhorns came into scoring position was at the top of the 2nd inning, with first baseman Zach Zubia stealing third base, only for Texas to strike out and go three and out for the inning. Other than that, Texas’ offense was all but reduced to nil strength.
For much of the first three innings, it might as well have been a duel of the aces between the teams’ starting pitchers: Texas’ Pete Hansen and Texas A&M’s Nathan Dettmer. Both pitchers went three and out for three straight innings, until the bottom of the 4th inning when Texas A&M’s Logan Britt scored the first home run of the game to put the Aggies up by 1. The game would remain scoreless for the next two innings, and the Longhorns made a pitching change in between, only to give up another home run by the bottom of the 7th inning.
The other homer of the game was made by none other than the one and only Michael Christopher Hoehner, the double fours, the man behind the home plate for the Fighting Farmers of College Station, and the pride of Langham Creek High School (Class of 2016, along with me), popping a dinger up over left center-field and bouncing off the scoreboard to put the Aggies up two runs to nothing. This one came off the heels of a pitching error made by Texas’ relief pitcher Tanner Witt, and for the remainder of the game, the Longhorns never came close again to another scoring opportunity.
“Obviously, it’s amplified when you’re playing your rival, and, you know, I think if you don’t have energy in this game, then we got some serious problems. We just brought the juice tonight to the game and you shot thirty-eight guys that would do anything to win this game tonight,” Hoehner said during his postgame interview with 12th Man TV.
With this loss, the Steer from the Forty Acres will most likely fall from their No. 5 spot in the college baseball rankings. The Longhorns came off five-straight series wins heading into the Rivalry game with the Aggies, but unfortunately solid pitching on the Longhorns’ part was not enough to keep the Aggies’ offense between the crosshairs, especially when Texas A&M’s two home runs of the game came from Texas’ pitching errors. The Texas Longhorns are now 17-8 overall in the regular season and 4-2 in the conference heading into the three-game series this weekend at Kansas.
