Texas one win away from Omaha after opening Austin Super Regional with 11-3 rout of Oregon

AUSTIN, Texas — With five of their eight hits going for extra bases, including home runs by Casey Borba and Ethan Mendoza, and Dylan Volantis putting up five shutout innings before his sixth-inning exit, Texas took another step toward a trip to Omaha with an 11-3 rout of Oregon in the first game of the Austin Super Regional on Saturday.

If the Longhorns win the second game of the Super Regional on Sunday (8 p.m., ESPN), they'd punch their ticket the College World Series for an NCAA-record 39th time.

A crowd of 8,550 fans at UFCU Disch-Falk Field and a national audience on ESPN watched Texas (44-13) battle through a three-hour, 53-minute affair that was downright sloppy at times. The two clubs combined to walk 17 batters and hit five more, with four combined runs scored on walks, hit batters or balks with the bases loaded.

When push came to shove, however, Volantis (5.1 innings, eight hits, two earned runs, four walks, 10 strikeouts, four wild pitches and one hit batter on a career-high 110 pitches) and the three other pitchers Jim Schlossnagle and Max Weiner used held the Ducks to an 0-for-14 night hitting with runners in scoring position. Oregon (43-17) only pushed two runs across after having the bases loaded with one out in the top of the third, runners in scoring position with no outs in the fourth and the bases loaded with no outs in the sixth.

Those two runs came home in the sixth, when Thomas Burns issued back-to-back walks in relief of Volantis. Luke Harrison, who has been in the starting rotation all season and appeared in two games in the Austin Regional (he started the team’s 19-1 win over Holy Cross last Friday and recorded the last out in a 6-4 victory over UC Santa Barbara last Sunday), struck out catcher Burke-Lee Mabeus to get the Longhorns out of the seventh.

Harrison struck out two and walked two in 1.1 hitless innings (27 total pitches) out of the bullpen.

The Ducks outhit the Longhorns, 9-8, but Texas made its hits count. The Longhorns jumped out to a 7-0 lead through five thanks to Adrian Rodriguez’s two-run double in the first inning, Borba’s solo homer (his 18th of the season and the 34th of his career, moving him into a tie with Kody Clemens for the sixth-most home runs in program history) and a sacrifice fly to right field by Aiden Robbins in the bottom of the second and an RBI single by Rodriguez highlighting a two-run fifth.

After Oregon cut into the deficit with two runs in the top of the sixth, Texas got those runs back and then some in the home half.

Anthony Pack Jr. and Temo Becerra moved into scoring position for Rodriguez, whose sacrifice fly to center field brought Pack home, a part of the sophomore shortstop’s 2-for-3 night at the plate with a career-high five RBI. With Becerra on third and one out, Mendoza obliterated a 1-0 pitch from right-handed relief pitcher Collin Clarke, crushing a 438-foot home run to left field.