FORT WORTH — The hit that finally stopped TCU at the Big 12 tournament sliced into left field, too far for Josh Watson.
He chased it down anyway, reaching it on the warning track as Oklahoma State defeated TCU 7-6 in 10 innings on Sunday in Oklahoma City, the last ball he’d ever get to in a Horned Frogs baseball uniform.
He thought.
Less than 24 hours later, Watson and his teammates learned there will be more games with the announcement of their inclusion in the NCAA tournament field of 64 teams. One of the last squads in, the Frogs are a No. 3 seed in the Fayetteville Regional, opening against Cal on Friday night at host Arkansas’ Baum-Walker Stadium in the four-team double-elimination event.
“That last game was tough,” said Watson, a senior who has started and played every game in four years in Fort Worth. Friday will be his 250th, putting him one shy of Keaton Jones’ school record. “To be honest, I was kind of thinking that might have been my last TCU baseball game.”
At a selection show watch party Monday morning at the Stuart Family Courtside Club, the left fielder and teammates reacted with shouts, hugs and glee when “TCU” popped on the screen.
“I’m just speechless and overjoyed with emotions right now, seeing our name on that board in the 64,” Watson said. “I’m so excited to wear TCU Horned Frogs across my chest one more time and get to take the field with these guys.”
The Frogs were 32-26, including 11-13 in the Big 12 regular season and 3-2 in the Big 12 tournament, including victories against nationally ranked Oklahoma State and Baylor that bumped their RPI to respectability at 59. The Frogs nearly won a fourth straight game to reach the championship game.
“I was happy with the way we bounced back from the first loss,” second baseman Austin Henry said. “We showed some grit. Hopefully we show some more grit later this week in Fayetteville. It’s like a whole new season. Gotta get back to work and make this run.”
Coach Jim Schlossnagle said his team made the field for two reasons.
“Since 2011, the No. 2 RPI league in the country has never gotten less than five teams,” he said. “So I think the strength of the Big 12, the fact that we have a national seed, probably could have had two, and that we had three hosts and Baylor is a No. 2 seed shows you the strength of our conference. If we were going to get a fifth team, I felt like we had as good a chance as the other schools that would be considered.
“And the second thing is Jared Janczak. That’s the difference-maker. We can argue that between Nick Lodolo, Charles King, Brandon Williamson and Janczak, our starting pitching can hang with just about anybody.”
Janczak struck out the first eight batters and finished with 12 in six innings on Saturday against Oklahoma State at the Big 12 tournament. For the right-hander who underwent Thoracic Outlet Syndrome surgery last April, it was his longest outing since March 9, 2018, at USC and his most strikeouts since March 18, 2017, against Kansas.
The senior from Belton, too, thought it was his last game.
“I was pretty down,” Janczak said. “I was like, ‘That was my last game in a TCU uniform.’ Now we have a new life. We’ve got four legit starting pitchers now, knock on wood. That’s what you need in postseason.”
Postseason. TCU is used to it, with now 14 appearances in 16 seasons. They were close to missing postseason two years in a row for the first time under Schlossnagle.
“That’s a lot of raw emotion right there,” the veteran coach said, looking at his team still basking in the glow of a continued season. “Those kids have been through a lot. Some of it’s self-induced, but a lot of it’s not, with the injuries. They feel the weight of this program. They feel the weight of the expectations of this program. Nobody wants to be that team that doesn’t get to the NCAA tournament. We were that last year. Thankfully this bunch got us back there.”
(Photo by TCU Athletics)
