TCU Shines In Regional Opener

Friday, May 29

Fort Worth, Texas

7:00 PM

TCU

44-11

Sacred Heart

23-31-1

Sacred Heart

TCU

TCU Shines In Regional Opener

5/29/2015 12:00:00 AM | Baseball

Box Score

May 29, 2015

Final Stats | Quotes | Notes | Photo Gallery

FORT WORTH - A dominant pitching performance from Mitchell Traver and an opportunistic offense led TCU to a 10-0 win over Sacred Heart in the Horned Frogs' opening game of the 2015 NCAA Fort Worth Regional.

Traver, making his first appearance on the mound since May 12, gave the Frogs a quality seven-inning start. He allowed four hits, walked three and struck out seven to improve to 8-2 on the season. Brian Trieglaff closed out the game, striking out five, while working around a base hit and a walk in two innings.

Cody Jones launched a home run to open the bottom of the first, and the Frogs cruised from there. The long ball was the fifth of the season for the Big 12 Player of the Year.

A trio of one-out walks to Jones, Jeremie Fagnan and Connor Wanhanen in the third helped the Frogs break the game open. Evan Skoug looped a single to center to drive in the second run of the game. Derek Odell hit a sacrifice fly and Nolan Brown bounced a two-out single through the right side to push the TCU lead to 4-0.

Another two runs crossed the plate in the fifth as the lead grew to six. Skoug worked a one-out walk and Brown kept the inning alive with a two-out single. Keaton Jones lined a base hit to center to drive in Skoug. Garrett Crain followed with an RBI single to make it a 6-0 game.

Fagnan ran wild on the base paths in the sixth to help the Frogs tack on their seventh run of the game. After reaching on a one-out single, Fagnan stole second and third on consecutive pitches. Wanhanen did his job, grounding out to the right side to drive in Fagnan for a 7-0 lead.

Two errors in the eighth put the game out of reach. Dane Steinhagen walked to open the inning. He raced to third on a hustle double from Jones and scored after the throw from the outfield darted away from the shortstop. Another error on a ball hit by Zack Plunkett kept the inning alive for Odell, who slapped a single up the middle to drive in the final two runs of the game.

Sacred Heart never mounted much of a threat against the duo of Traver and Trieglaff. Only twice in the game did the Pioneers send more than four men to the plate and they never had a runner advance past second base.

With the victory, TCU improves to 44-11 overall. The Horned Frogs advance in the winner's bracket and will face the region's No. 2 seed, N.C. State Saturday night at 7 on ESPN3. Preston Morrison will get the start for the Frogs.