Saw 'Em Off: Barash's walk-off homer vaults Aggies over Texas, 5-4

GAME #17: Texas A&M 5, Texas 4
RECORDS: Texas A&M 16-1, Texas 7-10
WP: Mark Ecker (1-0)
LP: Ty Culbreth (2-2)
BOX SCORE

---

On Tuesday night at Olsen Field, everything was as it should have been.

The stands were full. The weather was perfect for baseball. And the Aggies and Longhorns were facing off on the diamond once again.

After a two-year hiatus for the rivalry, Texas A&M and Texas brought it back in a big way in their only matchup of the 2016 season, fighting tooth and nail to a thrilling finish as Michael Barash ended the game with a walk-off home run in the bottom of the ninth to give the Aggies the victory, 5-4.

Though the game ended in such an intense, abrupt manner, its beginnings were anything but suspenseful.

After two scoreless innings for both squads, the Aggies took the lead in the bottom of the third. A&M loaded the bases with no outs against Longhorn pitcher Morgan Cooper and plated two runs on a Hunter Melton single.

The Aggies added to their lead just one inning later. With Barash on second, Joel Davis stepped to the plate and delivered some insurance, muscling a two-run home run over the right field fence.

Texas A&M looked comfortable with the 4-0 lead, thanks in no small part to a dominant outing from sophomore Brigham Hill. Hill scattered six hits and a walk through his seven innings of work while striking out five and looked even more in control than his stats indicate.

When Hill was done, Ryan Hendrix took the mound, and the junior closer continued the stellar pitching performance in the eighth, striking out two and putting the Aggies three outs away from another win.

Things went south in the ninth.

Hendrix gave up a double to lead off the inning, and things got worse for the Aggies from there. Struggling with his command, the junior walked a man and hit another with a pitch to load the bases. Rob Childress had little choice but to pull him and let Turner Larkins attempt to close things out.

The sophomore, it turns out, was destined for a rough night on the bump as well. Larkins gave up a ground-rule double over the right field wall to the first batter he saw. The two-RBI hit left runners on second and third for the Longhorns.

Larkins almost brought the Aggies back from the brink of disaster with two consecutive outs but couldn't hold it together long enough to finish the game. After walking the next man, the powerful right-hander gave up a two-RBI single to tie the game, 4-4.

Mark Ecker entered the fray and got the Aggies out of the inning, but it was too little, too late for the Maroon and White. The lead had evaporated, and all of the momentum was in the Longhorn dugout. In the eyes of many at Blue Bell Park, the game seemed destined for extra innings.

It almost was.

Barash stepped up to the plate to lead off the bottom half of the ninth and worked his way into a 2-1 count before popping up into foul territory down the right field line. Three Longhorns ran to the ball but let it drop between them, failing to communicate in the heat of the moment.

In sports, those types of things have a tendency to come back and bite you — and that proved true three pitches later when Barash crushed a walk-off homer to left and won the game with one swing of the bat.

The senior seemed to be in a state of shock after the game, the smile on his face saying just as much as the words he spoke.

"We grind together," he said. "We bleed together, and everything we do just led up to that moment. It was absolutely incredible. That was so much fun to celebrate with our guys.

"It's a dream come true, really. The day I committed here, (Texas was) the one team I wanted to play. I was just fortunate to put a good swing on the baseball. That was absolutely incredible."

Aggie head coach Rob Childress couldn't have written a better ending to Tuesday night's contest.

"For us, to renew the rivalry with Texas, that's probably the way it should go," Childress said. "The game should be close and decided at the end. It was not a run-of-the-mill Tuesday night."

On Tuesday night at Olsen, everything was as it should have been. The Aggies and Longhorns played a heck of a baseball game. It came down to the final at-bat of the ninth inning. It was won in walk-off fashion.

There was even a dogpile at home plate.

Oh, and the Aggies came out on top — as it should be.