The Texas Tech baseball team went into Friday, May 15, playing to secure a spot in next week’s Big 12 tournament.
The Red Raiders were playing for something else, too, even if they weren’t aware of it: Tim Tadlock’s 500th victory as head coach of the program.
Caden Ferraro and Robin Villeneuve homered and Linkin Garcia put the visiting Red Raiders ahead for good with a two-run double as Tech squeezed past Cincinnati 6-5 in the first game of a doubleheader at UC Baseball Stadium. Donovan Becerra pitched five solid innings for his first victory of the season.
Tadlock is 500-302 as Tech head coach, having been promoted to the position in June 2012 after a year as associate head coach. He’s 935-429 as a college head coach, which includes nine seasons at Grayson College.
Tadlock was ejected from Thursday’s series opener for arguing after Tech starting pitcher Kaysen Raineri was ejected before him.
The Big 12 tournament is next week in Surprise, Arizona, with 12 teams qualifying.
Going into games Friday night, Kansas State (27-25, 10-18 in the Big 12) was in 11th place, Texas Tech (27-26, 10-19) was in 12th and Arizona (19-32, 9-19) was in 13th. K-State was scheduled to finish the regular season with games Friday night and Saturday at Central Florida, and Arizona was scheduled to finish with games Friday night and Saturday at Oklahoma State.
Should Tech and Arizona finish in a two-way tie, Tech has the tiebreaker based on its series victory in Tucson.
The Friday and Saturday games of the Tech-Cincinnati series were rescheduled as a Friday doubleheader with the National Weather Service forecast for a 70% chance of rain on Saturday.
Tech two-way player Connor Shouse had an all-around performance with three hits, including two doubles, a sacrifice fly and his third save. He pitched two scoreless innings, working around an inherited runner who walked and two hit batsmen in the eighth and an infield hit in the ninth. He allowed the inherited runner to score on a sacrifice fly.
Shouse’s saves have come in his past three pitching appearances, the first on May 5 against Dallas Baptist and the second on May 9 against Brigham Young.
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Tim Tadlock gets milestone as Texas Tech baseball beats Cincinnati
Reporting by Don Williams, Lubbock Avalanche-Journal / Lubbock Avalanche-Journal
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