Red Raiders Comeback to Win Game One

Game one of the Red Raiders’ conference opener against No. 12 OSU got off to a bit of a rocky start. Ty Coleman was back in the DH spot and Owen Washburn was back in the familiar right field. The Cowboys were able to open the scoring for the day in just the top of the first pushing 2 runs across on Brendan Girton. The Red Raiders were able to answer back in the bottom of the second inning when Gavin Kash was able to score on an error that allowed Tracer Lopez to reach base. OSU responded quickly however and pushed another run across in the top of the third inning. The Red Raiders then went down in order in their half of the third. The top of the fourth is where the Cowboys’ bats really came alive and they were able to get three more runs across on Girton before Garrett Crowley was brought in to get them out of the inning. Tech would go on to load the bases in their half of the inning but was unable to capitalize and the score would remain 1-6. Crowley came out to pitch again in the top of the fifth where another OSU run would cross the plate and move the score to 1-7. The Red Raiders began to really strike back in their half of the inning however after Austin Green reached third on an OSU error to get Kevin Bazzell across home plate, Green would then go on to cross home himself on a sac fly from Ty Coleman making the score 3-7. Neither team would go on to score again until the bottom of the 8th inning where Tech was able to find their St. Patty’s day luck just in time, tying the game up at 7-7 after an RBI walk from Gage Harrelson, an RBI double from Kevin Bazzell, and an RBI single from Austin Green. The game remained tied into extra innings until Gavin Kash was up to bat in the bottom of the 10th and a timely double from the Big 12 batting leader scored Kevin Bazzell to take the walk-off win for the Red Raiders 8-7

Relief pitching was once again a key component in winning this game for the Red Raiders, between the four relief pitchers tech brought in, only one run was allowed. Ethan Coombes had an incredible outing recording five strikeouts against OSU batters and Ryan Free saw six OSU batters and sat them all down in order. Tracer Lopez is seeming to find his groove on the defensive end making incredible timely plays at shortstop in the later innings of this game. The Cowboys, who led the Big 12 in fielding prior to this matchup, had four errors to the Red Raiders one. Overall a solid start to conference play for this young rebuild team, they showed grit and perseverance to secure this one.