Texas is back in a must-win game after Georgia beat the Longhorns 7-1 in their College World Series opener, pushing them into the loser’s bracket and setting up an elimination game against Alabama on Monday at 1 p.m. Central on.
That is the kind of turn that leaves no room for drift. Texas has already been knocked out after two games in Omaha in 2011, 2018 and 2022, and this trip now carries the same danger unless Jim Schlossnagle’s team starts stacking wins immediately. If the Longhorns survive Alabama, they would still need four straight elimination wins to keep the season moving toward the title path.
Adrian Rodriguez gave Texas its only real spark. He went 2-for-3 and scored the lone run, while Anthony Pack Jr. went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts and Georgia pitcher Joey Volchko controlled the rest of the night with 15 strikeouts in his first complete game. Volchko did not walk a batter until the ninth inning, a sign of just how cleanly Georgia handled the game from the mound.
The damage for Texas also came from its own defense. The Longhorns committed three errors behind Dylan Volantis, and two throwing errors by Carson Tinney in the first inning helped turn strikeouts into two unearned runs. Casey Borba then made an error to lead off the seventh inning, and Rodriguez later made a mental mistake trying to throw out a runner at third with no outs. In all, miscues that started as routine outs became five unearned runs, and that was too much to overcome against a pitcher working at that level.
Schlossnagle called Volchko exceptional and said he threw an endless stream of strikes, praising the Georgia right-hander as professional and composed. Texas has still shown before that it can push deep into elimination territory — it nearly won four straight elimination games in Omaha in 2014 and again in 2021 — but the margin for error is gone now. Monday’s game with Alabama is not about settling in; it is about staying alive long enough to try for the kind of run Texas has never quite finished.
