Red Raiders Take Series in Morgantown

Game 1 - Tech 1 West Virginia 0

The first game of the series was scheduled to be played on Friday evening, but the weather intervened and the game was rescheduled to Saturday as part of a doubleheader. Originally Gingery was supposed to start game 1 but with the reschedule Erikson Lanning was given the opportunity. It was his longest outing of the season, and his best by far. Lanning went 6 strong innings, only giving up two hits and two walks while striking one out. In the 7th Jacob Patterson came in and had three great innings of his own, allowing no hits, just one walk, and four strikeouts.

In a surprise move, Tanner Gardner was back in the lineup, but not in the field quite yet. As the DH he went 1-3 and had a walk. Tech had seven runs throughout the game, but only scored once, when Grant Little doubled in Cody Farhat, who was on third from a triple. These were the only extra base hits of the game for the Red Raiders as the bats were relatively quiet this weekend.

Game 2 - Tech 4 West Virginia 3

In the second game of the doubleheader Ryan Shetter would get the start. The Mountaineers went up quickly, scoring twice in the first inning. Both runs happened on plays where Tech would make a mistake, first on an error in the field that allowed a runner get to third, who would score on a balk. The Red Raiders would get one back in the third when Long doubled in Michael Davis. West Virginia would get their two run lead right back with a solo home run. That would be it for the Mountaineers as Tech seemed to benefit from another weather delay.

After a rain delay that lasted over an hour, West Virginia started to make mistakes. Garcia would walk and advanced to second on a throwing error. After a single moved him to third, another wild pitch scored a run to cut the score to 3-2. Ty Harpenau would come in after the rain delay and pitch 2 strong innings, allowing just a single hit.

In the 8th, Grant Little would lead off the inning with a walk. After a single, he made it to third on an error in the field. Jung would ground out in a double play that scored Little to tie the game. Garcia would score in the ninth inning, with a single, stolen base, and another single. Mushinski and Quezada combined to pitch the bottom of the inning, clinching the win and series.

Game 3 - Tech 2 West Virginia 3

The low scoring would continue in the Sunday finale as Tech would strike first in the third. After trading runs between the teams, Tech was up 2-1 going into the bottom of the fifth. Two throwing errors by Gingery turned a single into a run scored. Another error in the infield would lead to the go-ahead run, that would be the final score.

The Tech bats were asleep when compared to the explosion against TCU from last weekend. Strong pitching was the story of the weekend.

Season Outlook

Coming into this weekend with two series left, TCU was ahead of Tech and West Virginia. Tech gained a single game on the Mountaineers, and holds the tiebreaker over both teams. However, TCU swept Texas in Ft Worth and is now two games ahead of the Red Raiders. For Tech to repeat as Big 12 conference champions, TCU will need to lose at least two of the games in Norman next weekend before Kansas comes to town.

There will be no baseball this week with it being finals week. The season finale series will be May 18th-20th as Kansas comes to Lubbock.