TCU Baseball wins Big 12 regular season title

TCU Baseball closed out the regular season in style with a home sweep over the Santa Clara Broncos to extend its win streak to seven and finish with a 35-18 overall record.

While the Frogs took care of business in Lupton against a non-conference foe, their Big 12 fate relied on one crucial result from Norman. Oklahoma had beaten Texas Tech in games 1 and 2 of their weekend series, which meant TCU needed a Red Raider win in game 3 to take sole claim of the 2022 Big 12 regular-season title.

If the Sooners were to win, they would have shared the title with the Frogs and served as Co-Champions. Thankfully there’s no need for any 2014 Big 12 Football flashbacks, as Texas Tech came in clutch for the Frogs.

The Red Raiders won game 3 in Norman, which means TCU finished one game above both Tech and Oklahoma in the conference standings to stand alone as champion. The first back-to-back Big 12 champions since 2016-2017.

Everything somewhat fell in place for the Frogs and first-year head coach Kirk Saarloos in the final weeks of the season.

Texas Tech swept Oklahoma State at the start of the month to push the Pokes down the Big 12 standings, then beautifully lost two and won one this weekend, the perfect scenario for the Frogs. Also shoutout to Oklahoma, for beating Tech the exact number TCU needed. And last but certainly not least, how about the Frogs’ two CLUTCH series wins over Oklahoma State and Texas Tech in late April?

This championship was more than earned by the Frogs, but a little late season Big 12 chaos never hurt anyone.

After this weekend’s results the Big 12 standings read as follows:

1. TCU (16-8)
2. Texas Tech (15-9)
3. Oklahoma (15-9)
4. Oklahoma State (15-9)
5. Texas (14-10)
6. West Virginia (14-10)
7. Kansas State (8-16)
8. Baylor (7-17)
9. Kansas (4-20)

Quite literally, one game separates 1st to 4th, and only two games separate 1st to 6th.

Thanks to this weekend’s results, the Frogs claim the 1-seed in the Big 12 tournament and will face Baylor in the first round.

Speaking of this weekend, how about those Horned Frogs?

After a close one in game 1, the Frogs dominated games 2 and 3 against the Broncos, winning by a combined score of 19-4. Game 2’s 9-3 win was highlighted by the fact that both Luke Boyers and Elijah Nunez joined the 100-hit club. Aside from a pair of milestones, Marcelo Perez pitched six scoreless innings while facing no more than four batters in an inning, and Porter Brown blasted a three-run bomb adding to his 2-for-2 day at the plate.

Game 3 was more of the same as the Frogs’ bats got hot, especially with 2 outs on the board. 7 of the Frogs’ 10 runs came with 2 outs, as Tommy Sacco had a 2-HR day, adding three runs himself. Not to leave out Riley Cornelio, who was absolutely DEALING on the mound. He finished allowing just 1 run on 4 hits while striking out 9 batters.

Although the Broncos aren’t ranked, you love to see the Frogs get hot at the right time, finishing the year on a seven-game win streak.

The Frogs’ postseason gets underway this Wednesday, May 25 at 12:30 p.m. CST. The game is being played at Globe Life Field in Arlington, but if you can’t make the trip you can catch all the action on ESPN+.