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Texas bats fall silent, lose opening night against Tennessee 5-1

by: Evan Vieth05/09/26

It was a night to forget for Texas Baseball in its first regular season game as a member of the SEC against Tennessee.

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The Volunteers aren’t at the same level as a program as under Tony Vitello in previous years, but Round Rock native Josh Elander had his team ready to go in Knoxville. Texas baseball’s bats couldn’t muster much of anything, and Tennessee bats getting to star Friday man Dylan Volantis early was more than enough to win the ballgame 5-1.

The story of the night was Tennessee Friday starter Tegan Kuhns, a streaky righty arm who had a career night in front of his home crowd.

Kuhns struck out 15, walking just one batter and giving up just four hits in a seven inning, scoreless outing.

The exclamation point came in the final out of the inning. Kuhns, well over 100 pitches, had given up two of his five base runners on the night in the last two batters, back-to-back singles from Temo Becerra and Ashton Larson.

Elander came to the mound, seemingly to take Kuhns out, but exited without the pitcher. The crowd was fired up as he looked to get the final out.

Casey Borba hit the first pitch deep enough to be gone, but too far pulled to left field and foul. Instead, Kuhns would force Borba into a 1-2 count and a strikeout, the third for the Texas corner infielder on the night.

That felt like the end of the game for Texas, and the Longhorns made some questionable decisions in the bottom half.

Texas head coach Jim Schlossnagle opted to keep Cody Howard, who entered with one SEC inning pitched, in for a second inning, albeit after a successful sixth.

Howard would allow two base runners and a wild pitch before getting a big out, but instead of loading the bases to put the force out at home and a potential jam-ending double play to the plate, Schlossnagle trusted Howard, and it didn’t work in the Horns’ favor.

A first-pitch single made it 5-0, and that was pretty much all she wrote, as Texas felt completely out of striking distance.

Aiden Robbins would get his second hit of the night on a solo shot in the eighth, but that was all Texas would do all night.

Final line for the batters:
7 H
2 XBH (both from Robbins)
1 R
1 BB
19 Ks

Outside of Robbins and Becerra, it was a terrible performance from the bats. Adrian Rodrigue, Casey Borba and Maddox Monsour combined for 10 strikeouts and zero times reaching base, while Carson Tinney and Anthony Pack were both silent.

To make matters worse, Ethan Mendoza exited the game in the second with an injury, one we’re still waiting to hear more on from the team.

Texas exits tonight’s game having lost for the first time when Volantis pitches all season, a perfect 11-0 before, and needing a giant boost offensively in the final two games of the series.

Texas will take on Tennessee with a chance to keep a series win alive at 5 P.M. on Saturday night.

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