UT fails to make NCAA tournament

AUSTIN (KXAN) - For the first time since 1998, Texas baseball failed to make the NCAA Tournament.

“It’s borderline devastating when you have the habit of being included, and then you’re not,” Coach Augie Garrido said. “

While Garrido felt Texas did enough to earn a bid, he understands the Horns weren’t a lock for the tournament.

We had opportunities to avoid this and we failed on the playing field to support our self and to avoid giving the committee a chance to leave us out of the tournament,” Garrido said.

During the last month of the season, the Longhorns (30-22, 14-10 Big 12) went 7-8, including series losses to Texas A&M, Missouri and Baylor and capped off with an 0-2 showing in the Big 12 tournament with losses to sixth seeded Missouri and seventh seeded Kansas.

After the early exit from Oklahoma City, the Horns could only sit and wait for the 64-team field to be announced Monday.

The Big 12 had four teams make the tournament with Baylor earning a national seed and Texas A&M also hosting a regional. Oklahoma and Big 12 Tournament Champion Missouri will be in the Charlottesville and Tucson regional, respectively.

Last season, Texas made it to the College World Series, but failed to win a game. The season before that, the Longhorns lost to TCU in the super regionals, and in 2009, Texas lost to LSU in the national championship series.

“You just feel like you let some people down, even the seniors on this team,” pitcher Nathan Thornhill said. “As a sophomore, you wanna do well for these seniors, you don’t want their season to end this early. You wanna keep playing as long as we can. And so, I mean, you don’t want it to end right now.”

Texas’ 22 losses are the most since 2008 when Texas failed to make it out of the Houston Regional.