No. 3 Texas beats Houston Christian, 16-3

The No. 3 Texas Longhorns remained undefeated in the 2026 season and in the all-time series against the Houston Christian Huskies with a 16-3 victory on Tuesday at UFCU Disch-Falk Field, the third straight midweek run-rule victory for head coach Jim Schlossnagle’s team.

Freshman right-hander Sam Cozart received his second career start for the Longhorns, allowing a solo home run in the fourth inning, but otherwise dominating against the Huskies even as he experienced some command issues. Because Cozart doesn’t typically pitch to contact, his pitch count reached 73 through five innings, during which the 6’6, 260-pounder struck out six batters, didn’t issue a walk, and didn’t allow any hits other than the home run.

When Cozart departed, sophomore right-hander Jason Flores came out of the bullpen and was greeted by a double down the right-field lime, continuing a trend of batters slashing elevated outside pitches to the opposite field against Flores.

With Texas in a shift, junior first baseman Casey Borba couldn’t come up with a ball blooped down the line off the handle of the bat to put runners on second and third with no outs. After Flores traded a run for an out, another run came home on a wild pitch and another batter reached on an infield single chopped over Borba’s head at first base. Flores battled back to strike out the next batter and got out of the inning without any further damage when Borba was able to handle a routine grounder to first.

In the seventh, Flores put down Houston Christian in order.

Texas pieced together a run in the first inning on an RBI groundout and a run in the second inning on an RBI single by junior catcher Andrew Ermis before blowing the game open with six runs in the fourth inning on a sacrifice fly and four straight singles, including three with two outs. When the Huskies were finally able to get out of the inning by winning a lengthy battle against junior first baseman Casey Borba, the Horns had notched eight hits in the game, six singles and two doubles, and drawn five walks.

The hit parade continued in the fifth for Texas with three straight singles to open the inning producing an RBI for junior second baseman Ethan Mendoza. Junior catcher Carson Tinney added some juice to the proceedings by sending a three-run home run into the visitor’s bullpen in left field to make it 12-1. By Tinney’s power standards, it was a modest effort in traveling 355 feet.

As the two runs scored by Houston Christian in the top of the sixth inning threatened to prolong the game, Texas came to the plate with the bottom of the order due up. After Borba and sophomore right fielder Jonah Williams drew one-out walks, a two-out single by Mendoza drove in a run to make it a 10-run game again and Tinney drew a nine-pitch walk to load the bases. The two-out rally continued when junior center fielder Aiden Robbins smashed a one-hopper past the Houston Christian shortstop for a two-run single.

The inning continued when redshirt senior Temo Becerra reached on an error by the shortstop that brought in the 16th run of the game for the Longhorns before ending on a fielder’s choice.

Texas finished the game with 14 hits by nine players, including four multi-hit performances led by Mendoza, who went 3-for-5 with two RBI and three runs scored. Tinney and Borba also scored three runs.

In the final non-conference weekend series, Texas hosts USC Upstate starting at 6:30 p.m. Central on Friday.