FAYETTEVILLE — A trip to IHOP pregame Sunday morning may have been the fuel TCU’s baseball team needed to surge past Arkansas in the NCAA Fayetteville Regional winner’s bracket game.
If the choice of breakfast wasn’t a hit for the entire Horned Frogs team, it certainly was for second baseman Tre Richardson.
Richardson had hit two home runs in 239 at-bats entering the game. Before the sixth inning was over, he had homered three times in four trips to the plate.
Following TCU's 20-5 victory, he revealed what he credited for his big game.
“Nothing really changed other than maybe that we had IHOP for breakfast this morning,” Richardson said. “So that was something big. Let's probably do that again.”
His meal order was two pancakes and a slab of bacon.
The junior transfer from Baylor hit three opposite-field home runs — two of which were grand slams — all coming against different pitchers.
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Richardson broke the TCU single-game record for RBI (11) and tied the school’s record for home runs. No Horned Frog had hit three home runs in a game since Jason Coats against Houston on April 11, 2010.
His first-inning grand slam against Arkansas starter Hagen Smith put the Horned Frogs ahead 4-0. Richardson cleared full bases again an inning later with a big swing against Zack Morris to give TCU an 11-1 advantage.
“Shoot, I'd never hit a grand slam on any level of baseball,” Richardson said. “And, you know, it worked out today where I hit two. I was just trying to put up a good swing and win every pitch. I was able to do that today.”
His third homer was a two-run shot against Austin Ledbetter in the sixth. He became the 11th TCU player to hit three home runs in the same game.
“He’s hit a ton of balls hard,” TCU coach Kirk Saarloos said. “The first one I thought had a good chance of getting out just because I thought he hit it really well. The next two, I was a little bit surprised in terms of the ball getting over the fence.
“I knew he hit it well, but it seemed to be traveling really well this whole weekend to that part of the field. So, I guess he's saving the best for last — didn’t want to get all of his homers out of the way early. He was able to put three good swings on it today.”
An RBI single up the middle by Richardson in the ninth inning was his 11th RBI, which tied an NCAA Tournament record set by Baylor’s Shea Langeliers in 2019 against Nebraska-Omaha.
“I actually had no clue until we were going out for the bottom of the ninth and everybody came up and was congratulating me,” Richardson said of tying the record. “And I was like, ‘Why are y'all congratulating me? What's going on?’ Somebody had told me that and I was like, ‘Man, that's awesome.’”
Richardson hit three home runs his freshman season at Baylor and four his sophomore season before transferring. He increased his career home-run total by 25% in one game.
“You know, it's exciting,” Richardson said. “I mean, baseball is a crazy sport and it's a really emotionally taxing game. But to have days like this, I mean, this is why we play the sport because of moments like this.”
Both teams hit 4 home runs, but TCU's long balls scored 13 compared to 5 for Arkansas.
TCU star third baseman Brayden Taylor hit a three-run home run in the sixth inning.
It was the second time the Horned Frogs have scored runs in bunches against the Razorbacks. TCU defeated Arkansas 18-6 on Feb. 18, which was the second game of the year for both teams.
“It's not an Arkansas-specific thing,” Richardson said. “I think it's just the way that we approached the game. I mean, we've kind of preached the last month or so…. go out and just win every battle.”
Saarloos and Richardson acknowledged their work is not finished. The Horned Frogs will play the Arkansas-Santa Clara winner tomorrow in the regional championship. Both pointed to needing to bring the same level of focus for the finals.
“Baseball is a weird sport,” Saarloos said. “You know, there's no rhyme or reason to it — there really isn't. And what we've been able to do is we've had two good games against them.
"We've had four games against some other opponents that if I could figure it out, we'd have great games against everybody. But it's a weird sport and you never know what you're going to see.”