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Texas Tech baseball: 3 heroes from the Red Raiders’ Super Regional win

By Matthew Conner

OMAHA, NE - JUNE 23: A general view of baseball gear before game one of the College World Series Championship between the Vanderbilt Commodores and the Virginia Cavaliers on June 23, 2014 at TD Ameritrade Park in Omaha, Nebraska. (Photo by Peter Aiken/Getty Images)
OMAHA, NE - JUNE 23: A general view of baseball gear before game one of the College World Series Championship between the Vanderbilt Commodores and the Virginia Cavaliers on June 23, 2014 at TD Ameritrade Park in Omaha, Nebraska. (Photo by Peter Aiken/Getty Images) /
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The Texas Tech baseball team is headed to the College World Series again thanks in large part to the play of these heroes.

For the fourth time in program history, the Texas Tech baseball team is headed to Omaha for the College World Series.  But to get there in 2019, the Big 12 regular season champs had to do something they had not previously done, beat a national seed in the Super Regional.

And the series against No. 9 overall seed Oklahoma State proved to be the toughest and most thrilling Super Regional test yet.  In fact, the series was remarkably close in comparison to some other Super Regionals around the country.

The Red Raiders outscored the Cowboys by just three runs over the course of the weekend, 21-18.  And the matchup of two of the best offensive teams in the nation saw Tech belt seven homers while OSU had six.

What’s more, the series featured nine different ties in the final two games as neither team led by more than three runs at any point in the three game-set.  And after Tech’s 3-0 second-inning lead in the first game, the largest lead by either team was just two runs.  Finally, 13 times one of the two teams scored the other scored in the next half-inning as the two conference rivals traded blows for three-straight days.

Other teams had much easier journeys through their Super Regional matchup.  For instance, Louisville swept East Carolina winning their two games by a combined 26-1.  Meanwhile, Florida State swept LSU in Baton Rogue, though their two wins came by a combined three runs and they had to go to extra innings in game two.

And even some of the teams that went to a third game in the Supers found it much easier to punch their ticket to Omaha.  On Monday, Arkansas crushed Ole Miss 14-1 in Fayetteville in the third game of their series and Auburn dispatched North Carolina 14-7 after scoring 13 runs in the top of the first inning.

But life was far from that easy for Red Raider fans in Lubbock over the course of the weekend.  And we probably should have come to expect some close games because only two of the Red Raiders’ eight all-time Super Regional wins have come by more than two runs (6-1 in game-three versus Duke in 2018 and 11-0 in game-three versus East Carolina in 2016).

While close games may not make for a relaxing evening of sports viewing, they provide players with opportunities to become legends.  And we saw some Red Raiders carve their names in program lore with their performances this weekend.  Let’s take a look at the heroes that emerged from Tech’s Super Regional victory over Oklahoma State.

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