Baseball: TCU takes Big 12 tournament opener over Houston

The Horned Frogs advance to take on Kansas in the semifinal round.

TCU baseball opened the Big 12 Conference tournament in dominant fashion on Thursday, scoring four runs in the second inning and cruising over Houston 7-1 in a No. 3 vs No. 11 matchup. The third-seeded Horned Frogs (38-17, 19-11 Big 12) will advance and compete against the second-seeded Kansas Jayhawks in the semifinal round Friday evening. It was the fourth game between Houston and TCU this season, with the Horned Frogs finishing 3-1 against the Cougars. TCU swept its conference series against Kansas in the regular season.

Tommy LaPour earned the win on the mound, improving to 8-2 on the season after firing six and one-third frames with six strikeouts and one walk while holding Houston to two hits. Louis Rodriguez recorded two outs in the seventh inning and Cohen Feser tossed a scoreless eighth inning for the Horned Frogs, who finished with 10 hits in the win. Trever Baumler entered in the ninth inning and struck out one batter to help TCU preserve the win.

TCU held a 1-0 lead after Cole Cramer’s RBI single in the bottom of the first inning. The Horned Frogs broke the game open in the top of the second inning, surging ahead 5-0 after a pair of two-run singles from Cramer and Noah Franco, who belted his 11th home run of the season to give TCU a six-run advantage over the Cougars in the bottom of the fourth inning. Nolan Traeger ripped an RBI single in the bottom of the seventh inning as TCU carried a shutout into the ninth, where Houston scored one run on Xavier Perez’s RBI single.

While TCU struck out 10 times and left 12 runners on base, the Horned Frogs drew six walks and capitalized on four Houston errors in the game. Franco and Cramer each finished with two hits and three RBIs, while Sawyer Strosnider added two hits to aid the TCU offense.