Baseball: TCU defeats UT Arlington to split season series

The Horned Frogs pick up a nonconference victory before their Big 12 series with Arizona.

Sixteen different pitchers took the mound on Tuesday evening, when the TCU baseball team emerged with a 3-1 win over UT Arlington in nonconference action at Lupton Stadium. Eight Horned Frogs recorded at least one inning on the bump, combining for seven strikeouts while allowing one walk. Freshman standout Noah Franco led the TCU offense, which totaled nine hits in the victory. Franco went 3 for 4 with one RBI, while Cole Cramer and Karson Bowen each finished with two hits. The Horned Frogs (32-13, 14-7 Big 12) will resume conference play with a three-game series against Arizona in Tuscon this weekend.

TCU took a 1-0 lead on Isaac Cadena’s sacrifice fly in the bottom of the second inning. The Horned Frogs tacked on runs over the seventh and eighth innings, where freshman Nolan Traeger ripped an RBI single and Franco poked an RBI double down the left-field line to give their team a three-run advantage. Although UT Arlington tallied one run in the top of the ninth inning, TCU limited the Mavericks to three hits. Mason Bixby earned his first victory of the season, while Kade Eudy collected his sixth save despite allowing a run in the ninth.

Cohen Feser fired two shutout frames for the Horned Frogs, who also received scoreless innings from starter Kole Klecker as well as Mason Bixby, Noah Franco, Kaden Smith, Nate Stern and Louis Rodriguez. The victory enabled TCU to split the two-game season series with the Mavericks, who took down the Horned Frogs 6-4 in Arlington on April 8.