Tadlock: "This group's going to be just fine"

Texas Tech baseball started its season over the weekend, going 0-3 at the Shriner’s Children College Showdown at Globe Life Field in Arlington.

Texas Tech dropped its opener 10-3 vs Oklahoma, its second game 13-3 against No. 23 Vanderbilt and the finale 6-5 against No. 7 Arkansas.

In that Sunday game vs the Razorbacks, the Red Raiders were down 4-1 going into the 9th inning, before staging a furious four-run rally to take a 5-4 lead. It was all for naught though as Arkansas scored one of their own in the bottom half before walking it off in the 11th inning.

Following the game, Texas Tech head coach Tim Tadlock spoke with World Baseball Network for his reaction.

“Yeah, I mean we created some traffic,” Tadlock said. “You just described it. We got a big hit there, big two-out hit there at the end. Again, extremely proud of the way the guys competed through the day. Obviously you want to come out on the right side of it but you guys can see, there’s a lot of good things today. We ran a lot of good arms out there, a lot of really good things. This group’s going to be just fine.”

Leaders from Arlington

Despite going 0-3, Texas Tech did have some individual standout performers over the weekend.

Junior Kyeler Thompson was the star of the weekend for the Red Raiders, going 7-for-12 at the plate with a triple and an RBI.

Senior Robin Villeneuve was second on the team with three hits while also picking up a pair of walks and a stolen base. Freshman Linkin Garcia had two hits and two walks in the first action of his young career. Blinn College transfer Caden Ferraro also picked up a couple hits.

Veteran Tracer Lopez led the Red Raiders with four runs batted in, while Connor Shoush had two RBI’s himself.

On the pitching side, Opening Day starter Jackson Burns went 4.2 innings, allowing three hits and one run while walking five batters and striking out four.

Sophomore starter Connor Mohan faced a lot of traffic vs Arkansas but limited the damage over 3.2 innings. Mohan leads Texas Tech’s staff with five strikeouts on the season.

In relief, Addison Logan, Jacob Rogers, Jesse Rusinek and Jonny Lowe all took the mound without allowing any runs this weekend.

Up Next

The Red Raiders will look to bounce back with a road game in Edinburg, TX as they face UT Rio Grande Valley on Tuesday, Feb 17.

The Vaqueros are coming off a three-game set against Kansas in which in the Jayhawks won two of the three games. UTRGV won the opener by a 7-4 score before dropping the final two games.

Following the game against UTRGV, the Red Raiders will play their first home games of the season against the Albany Great Danes.

Tech and Albany will play a four-game series which includes a 2 p.m. first pitch on Friday, a doubleheader starting at noon on Saturday and a Sunday 1 p.m. finale.

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