Arizona baseball overpowered by Texas Tech’s hitting in home loss to open series
On a night that celebrated its 1976 national championship team, Arizona couldn’t put together a performance befitting a champion. The Wildcats kept it close for a majority of the game, but Texas Tech’s powerful batting was too much in a 9-5 loss on Friday night at Hi Corbett Field in the opener of a 3-game series. Former Arizona star Ron Hassey had the honor of throwing out the first pitch while representing the 1976 championship team.
There were many other players from the team that went out for the first pitch, and then proceeded to shake the hands of the current team before it took the field. “I was really happy to see a lot of those guys, and they did such great things for us,” UA coach Chip Hale said. “Arizona baseball has always been a great athletic program here, but they were the ones to push it through and get it to get the national championship.
” Following the pregame festivities, Owen Kramkowski got the game started for Arizona forcing Texas Tech to pop up, ground out, and then earned his 33rd strikeout of the season. Nate Novitske had a fly out to center field to start the batting for Arizona. Caleb Danzeisen singled up the middle and was followed by Tony Lira being walked.
Texas Tech denied the Wildcats any chance at scoring with a double play off of a Maddox Mihalakis grounder. The Red Raiders did not find any luck in the second inning as two ground outs and a fly out kept the game scoreless. Andrew Cain started the bottom of the second inning with a double to right field, but no one behind him could bring him in.
Jackson Forbes struck out swinging, Beau Sylvester flew out to center field, and Carson McEntire struck out looking. The Red Raiders started the third inning with three straight singles to load the bases with no outs. While Kramkowski was able to get his second strikeout, a fly out to right allowed Texas Tech to bring a runner in and take a 1-0 lead.
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