 "Photo: Paul Chouy/The Daily Texan")
 "Photo: Illustration by Olivia Hinton/The Daily Texan")
OMAHA, Neb. — A day after their latest nearly incomprehensible and downright impossible win in a continuing string of such games in the NCAA tournament, two Texas seniors were reliving the magical moment.
After three years of failing to reach the sacred ground of college baseball, the two seniors, relief pitcher Keith Shinaberry and second baseman Travis Tucker, made sure to live in the dream, basking in the fullness of Omaha’s glory.
“I told Travis, ‘We’ve won two games, and we haven’t played our best yet,’” Shinaberry said. “It is surprising and scary how good we can be. But to battle back the way we have has been pretty amazing.”
Shinaberry and Tucker, along with anyone who has watched Texas all season, knows the Longhorns have yet to play their best in Omaha. Four errors, combined with countless other mental mistakes, such as throwing to the wrong base, getting picked off at first and not charging an infield chopper, helped bury the Longhorns deep in the holes they magically escaped.
A win today against Arizona State and the Horns will capture Bracket 2 and clinch a spot in the championship series. A return to traditional Longhorn baseball — strong pitching, flawless fielding and power-hitting — would help Texas earn the needed win without stopping the orange-blood-pumping hearts of Longhorn faithful.
Texas coach Augie Garrido doesn’t want the magic to leave his team. Instead, he makes sure his team is continually learning how to keep its magic run going. So before the Longhorns took the field for drills on Wednesday, Garrido had his team get in one big circle, not to stretch their sore muscles, but instead to share their thoughts.
“The first thing I wanted to do was listen to the players. I wanted to know what they learned,” Garrido said. “We have to keep looking forward to getting better. There is no standing still, if you stand still you stop learning.”
And Garrido loved what he heard.
“I learned that they really are paying attention to what is going on,” Garrido said. “From their comments I could tell they are in the game, they are brothers in all of this. They are seeing the things that matter.”
To Shinaberry, who is one of the team’s leaders despite facing one batter the whole tournament, discovering the root of the Arizona State comeback will help capture the magic.
“We took a complete 180, we kind of hit the bottom,” Shinaberry said of the sloppy start that put Texas in a six-run hole and chased Chance Ruffin from the mound. “And the nerves went away, and we were in survival mode from there on.”
In survival mode, the primal Longhorns thrived on Tuesday, decapitating a pitching Goliath in Arizona State’s Mike Leake while continuing their magical run of postseason victories. The Longhorns mounted a ferocious eight-run comeback in the bottom of the ninth against Army to capture the regional championship.
When playing under natural baseball instincts and without the pressures of being a Longhorn, Texas is unbeatable.
“Instinct,” Garrido said. “They should do a live baseball reality show, the baseball gauntlet; there you would see some instinct.”
The problem for the Horns, while they continually find a way to make magical comebacks, is that it takes a scary jolt to get them going.
“Unfortunately, it takes us to get punched in the mouth,” Shinaberry said. “The leadership and the unity we have shown [coming back] is pretty special. It is the magic of Omaha.”
Garrido knows about the magic. He has experienced it many times before. Now, he wants his players to capture the magic he preaches about every day, the magic he spoke to his team about before Tuesday’s fourth-inning comeback.
To the senior reliever that may never get to throw a single pitch in the College World Series, Garrido’s rare trip to the bullpen was powerful enough.
“I didn’t know what he was going to say. I don’t ever remember him making a trip to the bullpen in a game, so I knew it was special,” Shinaberry said. “He told us, ‘Keep your heads up, we are going to come back, so be ready.’”
When Garrido — who some call the Yoda of baseball — spoke on Tuesday, the bullpen listened.
One win away from playing for a national championship, Garrido hopes his listening Longhorns have learned about the magic.
“It is a hard place to find,” Garrido said. “It is a hard place to stay. We have to stay in the moment, stay in the process.”
Today: Arizona State (51-13) vs. Texas (48-14-1)
Where: Rosenblatt Stadium (Omaha, Neb.)
When: 6 p.m.
On air: ESPN2
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