<p>The Texas Longhorns found a way to cool down TCU and make sure the Big 12 Conference race goes down to the final weekend.</p>
<p>The Longhorns (38-12, 15-6 Big 12) closed out the series win with a 9-3 victory Sunday in a showdown of top 10 teams at TCU. They’re still a game behind the Horned Frogs (34-12, 16-5), who have been one of the nation’s hottest teams.</p>
<p>David Pierce’s team delivered in a series that the Texas coach presented as “truly an opportunity to play in a super regional setting and face the challenges going in on the road and seeing what we’re made of.”</p>
<p>Texas won 5-4 and lost 2-1 in the first two games. Then came the finale when Zach Zubia had two homers and drove in four runs and Pete Hansen delivered another dominant start.</p>
<p>Hansen allowed two hits in seven shutout innings before TCU scored three in the ninth off the bullpen. A week earlier, he allowed one run in 7-2/3 innings against Texas Tech, another Big 12 power.</p>
<p>The Longhorns rebounded from a series loss to Texas Tech, which had a four-game series canceled because of COVID-19 issues within the Illinois-Chicago program. Texas Tech has won series against both teams above the Red Raiders in the standings.</p>
<p>The Horned Frogs came into the weekend having won 11 of 12 games, including series sweeps of Oklahoma State and West Virginia. </p>
<p>Texas plays its final five games at home including a series with West Virginia in two weeks. TCU closes Big 12 play at Kansas State from May 20-22.</p>
<p>IN THE POLLS Arkansas remained a consensus No. 1 in the rankings after winning two of three from Georgia. Stanford vaulted into the top 10 in the Collegiate Baseball poll with a series win over Arizona and jumped five spots to No. 14 in Baseball America’s rankings.</p>
<p>Louisville made a five-spot leap in Collegiate Baseball’s poll, rising to No. 8 after winning the final two games against Duke on top of a midweek, 7-2 victory over No. 2 Vanderbilt.</p>
<p>D1baseball.com’s top four teams remain from the Southeastern Conference: No. 1 Arkansas, No. 2 Vandy, No. 3 Mississippi State and No. 4 Tennessee. Then come three Big 12 teams: Texas, TCU and Texas Tech.</p>
<p>NO-HIT WONDERS</p>
<p>There were several no-hitters in college baseball over the weekend.</p>
<p>Oklahoma State’s Justin Campbell became the program’s third pitcher to throw a nine-inning no-hitter in a 19-0 win at Kansas. He struck out 11 and allowed only an eighth-inning walk. The last Cowboy to do it was Bob Richardsonin 1968 against Houston; Jim Wixson did it in the 1960 College World Series against North Carolina.</p>
<p>Walker Powell’s seven-inning no-hitter highlighted a dominant pitching weekend for Southern Miss against Middle Tennessee. It was the Golden Eagles’ first complete-game no-hitter since Cliff Russum against Eastern Illinois on March 13, 2004. Hunter Stanley had struck out 16 in nine scoreless innings of an extra-inning victory Friday night. Ben Ethridge closed the series sweep with a complete-game shutout.</p>
<p>North Carolina Central’s Austin Vernon pitched the program’s first no-hitter of the modern era in a 10-0 win over Delaware State that ended after eight innings under the mercy rule.</p>
<p>Nicholas Dombkowski produced the second no-hitter of Hartford’s Division I era in a 4-0 win over Albany. Eventual first-round draft pick Sean Newcomb threw a seven-inning no-hitter in a 1-0 win over Yale in 2012. </p>
<p>MASSIVE INNING</p>
<p>Baylor set a program and Big 12 record with 17 runs in the fifth inning against Kansas State en route to a 23-3 win shortened by the mercy rule. Baylor had nine hits, six walks, a hit batter and a passed ball on a third strike in the huge inning. </p>
<p>“It was a lot of fun,” catcher Andy Thomas said. Unless you were a Kansas State pitcher, and five of them took the mound in that inning.</p>
<p>The Bears won their fourth straight conference series and are fourth in the Big 12 standings.</p>
<p>BIG NUMBERS</p>
<p>Maryland’s Justin Vought and Samford’s Max Pinto both had three-homer games over the weekend, matching the single-game high this season.</p>
<p>Jackson State’s Anthony Becerra struck out 17 Mississippi Valley State batters. Four other pitchers have had 17 strikeouts in a game this season, trailing McNeese State’s Will Dion’s 19 for most in a game.</p>
<p>MORE THAN FAIR(FIELD)</p>
<p>Fairfield finished the regular season 32-1 and riding a five-game winning streak. The Stags, who play in the Mid-American Athletic Conference, were 2-9 when the season shut down last year.</p>
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