TULSA, Okla. -- Connor Mayes pitched a complete game, two-hit shutout with 10 strikeouts, Tres Barrera blasted a two-run homer in the first inning and the Texas Baseball team secured a spot in the Big 12 Championship game with a 4-0 win over Baylor Saturday morning at ONEOK Field.

The Longhorns (29-25) will play No. 2 seed Oklahoma State in the championship game Sunday at noon. Mayes' complete game was Texas' third straight in the tournament, following Parker French and Ty Culbreth's nine-inning efforts on Wednesday and Thursday.

A freshman right-hander who was celebrating his 19th birthday on Saturday, Mayes gifted the Longhorns with an absolute gem, matching his career high of 10 Ks while surrendering just two singles and three walks.

Barrera, who lifted Texas to a 4-3, walk-off win over the Bears on Thursday, again was key with a two-run homer in the first inning. The Longhorns are 21-6 this season when scoring first, including a 15-3 mark when they plate a run in the first inning.

From there, Mayes (2-4) confounded Baylor with a four-pitch mix that saw the Bears put just three runners on base (error, single, walk) in the first five innings. Using a fastball, curve, changeup and slider, Mayes struck out seven in the first four innings.

Baylor (23-32) truly threatened just once, when a single and two walks loaded the bases in the bottom of the sixth, but Mayes induced a foul out to third base to escape the trouble.

Over the last three innings Mayes allowed just one runner, when he was charged with a fielding error in the seventh, but that was harmless. He retired the last seven batters of the game to complete the dominant effort.

Texas received crucial run support in the eighth when it loaded the bases thanks to a double from C.J Hinojosa, an intentional walk to Barrera and a single from Collin Shaw. With two outs, Brooks Marlow fell behind 0-2 in the count before lining a two-run single to left-center field that made it 4-0.

Joe Baker continued to swing a hot bat for the Horns, going 2-for-5 with a run to raise his batting average to .296 which is second on the team. Five more Longhorns provided a hit apiece in a well-pitched game from both teams. Aside from allowing Barrera's two-run homer, Baylor starting pitcher Theron Kay (3-4) kept Texas off the scoreboard in his 5 1/3 innings.

With Mayes' effort, the Longhorns have a 1.33 ERA in three games at the Big 12 Championship having allowed just four runs. This year is the first time in Big 12 Championship history that Texas has started 3-0.

Quotes

Head Coach Augie Garrido

Opening Statement: "I don't know if we've done it before, but we've won three complete games in a row. That was new, but they picked the right time for it. If there's a time to let the champion that's inside of you out, it was now. The three pitchers certainly did their part from that point of view. It puts us in the best possible position we could be in, with the pitching staff the way it is. It gives us the best opportunity that we could ever have to be successful. We still have the job of being successful out in front of us, with us not knowing who we're going to play. But by being the undefeated team to this point doesn't make any difference, except for how it affects the players. We did make two errors, but they weren't costly because we didn't couple that with walks and other types of free gifts or extra outs in the framework of the inning. We didn't give up free bases. It was a pretty clean game." 

On Connor Mayes' performance: "I want to thank Connor Mayes and his parents, his high school coach and anybody else that coached him because he did a great job today. He's a great pitcher and will be in the future for The University of Texas." 

On Connor Mayes' mound presence: "He pitches with a purpose, which is what you want everyone to play with. The purpose has to be higher than their own goals, that's where the team comes in. If the highest level of motivation you have is focused on yourself, you can't contribute to the overall good of the people on your team. You have to have a higher goal than yourself and he has that. When he made the adjustments in the eighth and ninth inning, the adrenaline was going and he could get under the ball. But he could still listen and respond to Skip [Johnson] and the other people talking to him. He continued to dial it down and trust his teammates. That's a higher purpose."  

Fr. RHP Connor Mayes

On the bases loaded situation: "It's stressful, it was a grind. I walked a couple of kids, that doesn't help you when you're walking people on four pitches. I had to step off the mound, C.J [Hinojosa] talked to me, Michael [Cantu] talked to me. I was able to calm myself down and get in to the zone, clear the mechanism as Skip [Johnson] would say. He told me to just hit the target and that's what I did. It worked out."

On the trend of pitching going nine innings: "I knew that I wanted to go out there and throw strikes and do the best I could. Those guys did a great job on Wednesday and Thursday. I knew I wanted to do what they did and throw strikes and when my time was done I was done and I knew that I gave it all I had and it went well today."

Soph. C/1B Tres Barrera

On his home-run: "It was just a change-up up in the zone. If you see it up in the zone, I just swing at it and put a good swing on it. As Skip [Johnson] would say, 'physics did its work'."

On the season: "It's the type of attitude all of the guys on this team have. Since the fall, we've all worked hard and came together. This season could've easily caused us to crumble and be selfish and become individuals, but we stuck together through all of the downs and kept working hard. Hopefully, as you see now, it's paying off."

Notes

- The Longhorns are the first team in Big 12 Championship history to pitch three straight complete games.

- Texas now has the most shutouts in Big 12 Championship history with four (5/23/15 vs. Baylor, 5/22/14 vs. OSU, 5/24/06 vs. TTU, 5/26/05 vs. Kansas).

- Texas improved to 21-6 when scoring first and 15-3 when scoring in the first inning.

- Texas had a 27 2/3 errorless inning streak snapped when Hinojosa committed a fielding error with one out in the bottom of the second. The last error before that came in game one of the Sunday doubleheader at Baylor last weekend, in the seventh inning.

- Texas has a 1.33 ERA in the tournament, a similar effort to what the Longhorns did in the postseason last year when they had a 1.25 ERA in 11 NCAA Tournament games.

- Mayes lowered his ERA to 2.29 on the season and is holding opponents to a .215 batting average. The freshman has 53 strikeouts to 20 walks.  

- Ben Johnson had his 15-game reached base streak snapped while Hinojosa and Zane Gurwitz extended theirs to 11 games.

- Baker extended his hitting streak to seven games and Marlow saw his reach six games.

- Gurwitz is hitting .600 (6-for-10) in the Big 12 Championship, Marlow .500 (3-for-6), Collin Shaw .364 (4-for-11) and Baker .357 (5-for-14).

- The shutout was Texas' fifth of the season.