In Game 1 of the battle between the SEC's UT's, Aidan Robbins was the sole offense for the Longhorns.
In the Texas Longhorns' first game ever at Lindsey Nelson Stadium in Knoxville, Aiden Robbins climbed the program record books, but it wasn't enough to top the Tennessee Volunteers in the series opener on Friday night.
Robbins' homer to right center in the eighth inning came as No. 4 Texas trailed 5-0. It proved to be a too-little-too-late effort as the Vols held on for a 5-1 finish.
With his team-leading 19th home run of the season, Robbins is now inside the top five in Texas baseball history for round-trippers in a season.
The "Hispanic Titanic" Ivan Melendez has the record with his 32 bombs in the 2022 season. Kyle Russell (28 in 2007), Kody Clemens (24 in 2018) and Jeff Ontiveros (20 in 2002) sit above Robbins' 2026 mark.
Texas' star lefty pitcher Dylan Volantis (7-1) was credited with his first loss of the season after giving up three runs on six hits in 5.0 innings of work. The Volunteers tacked on two more off of Longhorns reliever Cody Howard in the final three frames.
Robbins, the Horns' leadoff hitter who went 2 for 3 with a walk, was one of two players to register multiple hits in the effort. Temo Becerra went 2 for 4 at the plate.
Texas fell to 36-11 and 15-9 in SEC play. The Volunteers, who look to defend home field again in Game 2 of the series, sit 33-17 and 12-13 in conference.
The Longhorns are tied with rival Texas A&M for the second-best conference record and sit third overall in the SEC. Georgia is ahead of the pack with a 19-6 mark in conference play.
The Vols' strongest performance came from starting pitcher Tegan Kuhns, who struck out a career-high 15 batters, which is also tied for the most by an SEC pitcher this season. As a team, Tennessee pitchers struck out 19 Texas batters to set a new season-high and come up two short of the program record.
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Game 2 of the series between the Longhorns and Volunteers comes at 5 p.m. on Saturday.
