Kentucky baseball (19-13, 6-8 SEC) walked off No. 2 Texas (28-5, 12-2 SEC) 5-4 in 15 innings.

“It came down to who’s more tough,” Devin Burkes said. “Yeah, we got this one, so we edged them out, and we got the job done, baby.”

The game was ultimately decided in the 15th as Burkes led off the inning with a single to left. Griffin Cameron laid down a sacrifice bunt. Texas catcher Ryan Galvan sailed the throw, which trickled down the right field line and allowed Burkes to come all the way home to secure the walk off win.

The Wildcats were down to their final three outs in the bottom of the ninth, but Ethan Hindle launched a Big Blue Bomb over the left-field wall that tied the game 4-4 and sent the game into the 10th.

“I mean, [Austin Cousino] Cousy and [Chase] Slone have been making sure that I keep my head up. I’ve had some pretty tough at bats the last week,” Hindle said. “I just wanted to make sure that I was just keeping my approach, and I got my pitch.”

After both teams were held scoreless in the 10th, Simon Gregersen pitched a three-up, three-down 11th. Kyuss Gagrett led off the bottom of the 11th with a single to right and Shaun Montoya was plunked.

Hindle laid down a bunt, but the Longhorns threw out Gargett at third. Back-to-back strikeouts sent the game to the 12th inning.

Both offenses cooled off significantly as neither team had a runner past second base over the next three innings before the eventual walk off.

Way back in the first inning, Nic McCay took the ball for his ninth start of the season looking to get back on track in SEC play as the right-hander entered the game with a 7.63 ERA in his four conference starts.

McCay got off to a good start as he tossed a three-up, three-down first inning of work with two strikeouts. The righty walked the first batter he faced in the second, but a fly out and double play kept McCay at the minimum batters faced through two.

After being held off the board in the first, Burkes led off the second with a double and came home to score on a single from Gargett that gave Kentucky a 1-0 lead.

James McCoy added another run to the lead with a single down the left field line to score Gargett.

Galvin tagged McCay for a leadoff home run to start the fourth inning that cut the Cats lead to 2-1. After McCay hit a batter, Jalin Flores made him paid by depositing a homer over the right-field wall that gave Texas a 3-2 lead.

In bottom half of the fifth, Luke Lawrence roped a one-out single into left and stole second before Patrick Herrera delivered a single to tie the game 3-3.

Overall, McCay tossed 5 1/3 innings, which was his longest SEC outing and the two longballs were the only blemishes on his ledger.

After Evan Byers escaped a jam in the sixth, Cole Hage was plunked. With two outs, Hindle was called out for leaning over the plate to purposefully be hit by a pitch with two strikes.

The call was reviewed and upheld, which infuriated Kentucky Head Coach Nick Mingione, who was ejected from the game for arguing with the umpires.

“I cleaned out my entire I locker, watched every pitch, made sure I followed, I made every lineup change,” Mingione said about what he did after the ejection. “I can show you that all the lineup changes, I had all the right pitchers in there for each team. I scored the game.”

After pitching a scoreless seventh, Jackson Nove gave up a leadoff double in the eighth and the runner moved to third and scored on two wild pitches to give Texas a 4-3 advantage.

The Wildcats had a huge opportunity to tie or take the lead in the eighth after Herrera and Burkes were both plunked to open the inning. However, they came up empty as two strikeouts and a groundout ended the threat before game-tying homer in the ninth led to extras.

The pitching staff was excellent in the game as the Wildcats struck out 18 Longhorns. Furthermore, the trio of Grgersen, Nile Adcock and Cole Hentschel combined for 6 2/3 scoreless innings in relief from two outs in the ninth all the way to the 15h.

“When they’re able to go out there and just continuously put pressure on them and keep shutting them out and give us a chance to do what we do, it’s awesome,” Hindle said. “They definitely lead us to wins.”

Kentucky improved to 2-2 in extra inning contests on the season and have become no stranger to close games this season.

“It’s good to finally get one of the, one of the close games, you know, coming in our direction,” Burkes said.

Following the win, Kentucky and Texas will play in a series-deciding game three on Sunday, April 13, with first pitch set for noon ET.