TCU’s season-long struggle against Dallas Baptist continued as the Patriots left Jim Schlossnagle’s squad on the brink of elimination with plenty of baseball left to play.

TCU’s bats struggled mightily against Jared Stafford, who went 8.1 innings and allowed only three hits on 101 pitches.

Matt Purke provided five solid innings of work in giving up two runs off of two hits, striking out six. Trent Appleby picked up the loss in relief when the Patriots scored the winning run in the sixth.

Coach Schlossnagle, who was ejected by first base umpire Scott Graham for arguing a call in the ninth inning, said the team knows what they have to do in order to advance to a third consecutive super regional.

The Frogs must beat Oral Roberts tomorrow and then beat DBU twice more in order to keep their season alive.

Ryan Behmanesh singled in first and stole second as Purke struck out his first batter of the afternoon. A passed ball in the next at bat allowed Behmanesh to score all the way from second when catcher Josh Elander lost track of the ball at the backstop. The Patriots added a second run in the third when Jason Krizan, one of the best hitters in the country, hit his nation-leading 39th double to score Tyler Robbins.

The lead remained static until the fifth, when TCU finally broke Stafford’s no hitter. Josh Elander singled to start things off right for the Frogs leading off the inning.  Taylor Featherston picked up an RBI when he doubled the ball down the line. Elander barely beat the throw in to home and Featherston advanced to third on the throw. He was able to score on a Brett Johnson groundout to tie the game at two apiece.

The game remained tied throughout the rest of Purke’s tenure on the mound. Trent Appleby came on in relief in the sixth and promptly gave up a run to Joel Hutter, who doubled to lead off the inning and scored off of a single up the middle.

The game featured no more scoring, though a TCU rally in the ninth had a runner on third with two outs. Witte reached on an error and advanced to third on two consecutive outs. With the tying run ready to score, Elander struck out to end the game.

TCU will face Oral Roberts at 2 p.m. tomorrow in a rematch of yesterday’s game. The winner will then have to beat Dallas Baptist twice for the right to advance to the Super Regional.