By Ray Cartwright
Frogs Today Staff Writer
Brayden Taylor up to bat, bottom of the ninth, two outs. TCU trailing by one. Taylor swings, drives a ball deep to center field. Michael Robertson goes back, jumps, makes the leaping catch at the wall.
This is how TCU’s baseball season ended, on fly out that was hit 110 miles per hour off the bat and traveled 407 feet to a wall 408 feet from home plate. TCU’s magical run ended Wednesday in Omaha with a 3-2 loss to Florida.
Looking back, TCU Baseball entered the month of May with a record of 23-20. The previous weekend they were swept away by West Virginia, and had already lost two games to Texas.
The season was at a crossroads. Which direction would they go?
Over the course of the next month and a half TCU rattled off 21 wins with only four losses four. Each one of those four losses was by one run.
This speaks to the resiliency and the character that TCU has shown this season.
“Resilient, hardworking, determined young men that decided that they weren’t going to lose anymore,” coach Kirk Saarloos said. “It’s pretty special when you get a group of guys — the story is — every season has a story, but this one is pretty special in terms of where they were, where they finished and they finished top four in the country. They were 23 and 20. Left for dead. And they just kept showing up, kept working.”
Saarloos continued.
“If they don’t hold onto that for the rest of their lives and think about what’s possible when you just work hard and believe, I don’t know what else you could point to. Because that was pretty special just to see them continue to grow.”
