Early end to A&M's season is sad for many reasons

COLLEGE STATION — The way this season ended will linger for a while.

This isn't the way this group of guys was supposed to go. Yes, turnover is natural in college sports, and after the year's final game, it's time to simply close the book and move on to the next year. But ... it really isn't that simple.

Two weeks ago, Texas A&M sat on the edge of the discussion to host a super regional. That seemed like a faraway dream on Sunday afternoon, after it completed a rapid fall from its own regional with a 10-2 loss to TCU, ending the year at 43-18.

The 2012 season, on its way out the door, will take Ross Stripling, Estevan Uriegas, Jacob House, Matt Juengel and Scott Arthur, all great representatives of A&M who had a great appreciation for what it meant to play at this school. All guys that have helped grow and advance the program with each successive year that it returns to the postseason.

Each of them has been a contributor for at least three years, and Stripling leaves after one of the great careers on the mound in Aggie history. Uriegas takes a record (most appearances in a season) of his own with him, a proper reward for a senior year so good it seemed to come from nowhere. House manned the first base position with poise and polished skill for two years and brought his humble, friendly personality to everything off the field.

Yet, as sad as it is to say goodbye to a class of seniors — along with Michael Wacha and Tyler Naquin, who are almost assuredly gone to the draft — that have been to four regionals, a super regional and one College World Series, the way they went out was sadder still.

Facing the prospect of needing to win three games in two days, the Aggies didn't get past the first. A further- and further-slumping lineup set the stage for TCU starter Stefan Crichton to throw the first complete game of his career, going against Aggie hitters that swung early and often, hitting weak flies into the air and looking increasingly lifeless as the game drug on. Naquin stroked a double into right-center field in the third, scoring two after an early 2-0 deficit, to mark the only blip of a pulse. From then on, A&M only put a man on second base once more and went down eight straight to end the game.

Rafael Pineda got the start and, though not helped by his defense (sound familiar?), he was unimpressive and forced Rob Childress' hand early on. Pineda gave up a pair of two-out singles in the first, with the first runner scoring after advancing to second on Jace Statum's overplay of the ball. In the second inning, one man reached on a single and another on an error, followed by a double steal before Kyle Von Tungeln singled to knock another in.

Watching his starter leave pitches up and labor through two innings in an elimination game, Childress yanked Pineda to start the third and replaced him with Daniel Mengden, one of the Aggies' stars down the stretch. The freshman fared no better, hanging several breaking pitches and allowing Derek Odell's third home run of the season in the third, then serving up a two-run bomb to Kevin Cron in the fourth as part of a three-run frame for the Frogs. It was 6-2 when Mengden left, and it would only get worse.

Childress opted for Jason Freeman after two batters reached in the fifth; Freeman allowed both inherited runners to score and allowed another run of his own. Kyle Martin handled the last two innings, allowing one unearned run, and it was all over. The chance at a repeat trip to Omaha, the careers of some guys whose faces had been the most-associated with Aggie baseball, everything.

Two teams will play in Olsen Field tomorrow to determine the regional champion, and neither represent Texas A&M.

At some point, this Aggie lineup just got broken. There was no danger, no swagger, no thrat of coming back from a real deficit. It's a fact made all the more shocking by the way A&M swept Oklahoma State, coming back twice in the ninth inning and scoring a total of 18 runs in three games. It's easy to point to the Missouri game in the Big 12 Tournament, when a mediocre starter named Blake Holovach figured out how to shut the Aggies down with a changeup and a bit of location.

House and Juengel went hitless in their final game; Naquin's only hit was the third-inning double. And Scott Arthur, a guy whose bat kept him out of the daily lineup for much of his career, was the only one with multiple hits. It didn't help that the Aggies allowed seven stolen bases and committed four errors, nor that the pitching, the consistent strong point of the A&M program, simply gave out at the end.

Ross Stripling couldn't find his fastball on Saturday and got knocked around to the tune of 11 hits and six runs in his final start in an Aggie uniform; Pineda and Mengden, universally viewed as one of the best set of options a team could have for No. 3 and 4 starters, came without their best stuff and were rocked by a TCU lineup they never fooled for a second. Against an SEC-tested team like Ole Miss and a confident squad like the Horned Frogs, the Aggies never had a chance.

An emotional Arthur mumbled his way through the postgame press conference, his blank gaze drifting to the floor while he explained his career-long struggle to become an everyday player and his disbelief that it ended so suddenly. Childress took the time to name each of his big guys that will depart the program and he described the career arcs of each. The disappointment was tangible, between the team's unsatisfactory play and the uncomfortable goodbye drifting in the room.

Aside from the track teams' upcoming run at a four-peat national title, the last rites are read, finally, for an A&M sports year filled with, well, disappointment. The school will enter the SEC in a month, and it's on to a new horizon.

As for the baseball program, there's a period of uncertainty. Wacha and Stripling will depart, leaving question marks in the rotation just as the Ags begin play in a conference more fearsome in baseball than in football. At least four lineup spots will open. Could that be for the best? Maybe, after what we saw in this regional and in spurts this season. But this was one particular ride that should still be going.