Texas Tech sports roundup: Another softball first, baseball flounders, more

Here's a look at the latest headlines from around the Texas Tech athletic department for Monday, May 12, 2025.

Texas Tech softball to host NCAA regional for the first time

After claiming the Big 12 Tournament championship on Saturday, the Texas Tech softball team learned its NCAA Tournament draw on Sunday evening. The Red Raiders will be hosting a regional for the first time in program history as the No. 12 overall seed in the field.

At 45-12 overall, Tech had a season of firsts in 2025. In addition to being named a regional host for the first time and winning the Big 12 Tournament for the first time, the softball program also captured its first Big 12 regular-season championship.

Also participating in the Lubbock Regional will be No. 2 seed Mississippi State (37-17), No. 3 seed Washington (34-17), and No. 4 seed Brown (33-15). Tech will begin by hosting Brown at 4:30 p.m. on Friday afternoon on ESPN+, with the winner taking on the winner of Mississippi State and Washington, who play at 7 p.m. on ESPN2. 

Tickets are on sale for season ticket holders, with the deadline to request tickets arriving on Tuesday at 5 p.m. After that, all remaining tickets will go on sale at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday.

Texas Tech baseball loses final home series of the year

One program on campus that won't be hosting any postseason games this year is the baseball program. This weekend, the disastrous 2025 season took another turn for the worse as Texas Tech dropped two of three games to UCF in the final home series at Rip Griffin Park.

Now just 18-30 overall, the Red Raiders are just 12-15 in Big 12 play. What's even more shocking is that they are only 11-13 at home, where they traditionally dominate.

Friday, the Knights took game one 7-3 thanks to five runs in the final three innings to break open a tied game. Saturday, Tech responded with a 3-2 win in 11 innings. Damion Bravo launched his 10th homer in the bottom of the 11th for the walkoff win. Sunday, UCF responded with a 15-6 win to take the series. The Knights jumped out to a 4-0 lead after one inning and a 6-0 lead by the bottom of the second and cruised to the win from there.

Tech now has one final home game on the season when Abilene Christian comes to Lubbock on Tuesday evening. Then, the Red Raiders wrap up the regular season with a three-game set at BYU from Thursday through Saturday before participating in next week's Big 12 Tournament in Arlington, Texas.

Patrick Mahomes giving back to high school football community

Last week, the most famous Texas Tech football alum in the world, Patrick Mahomes II, announced that he and adidas will be giving back to the high school football community. Mahomes will be providing Mahomes Brand custom jerseys to 15 high school programs around the country this fall.

While the list of schools is not known at this time, one school that will be included is Whitehouse, Texas. Of course, that's where Mahomes played his high school football before arriving at Texas Tech.

Josh Jung homers in front of his mom on Mother's Day

Finally, it was a special weekend for the Jung family. With Texas Tech alums Josh and Jace facing off as opponents for the first time in their baseball careers, the Jungs were on hand in Detroit to see Josh's Texas Rangers take two of three games from Jace's Detroit Tigers.

Sunday, Mary Jung got to deliver the game ball to her sons on the field prior to first pitch. Then, she got to see Josh blast a two-run homer in the top of the fifth to help power the Rangers to a 6-1 win.

For the game, Josh was 2-4 to raise his season batting average to .265. Meanwhile, Jace continued to struggle going 0-3 to drop his average to just .100.