Oklahoma State Comes back and Evens Big 12 Series with Texas Tech

LUBBOCK, Texas – Oklahoma State overcame the gut punch that was the 8-7 loss to Texas Tech in the Big 12 series opener on Friday night at Rip Griffin Park to come back on Saturday and deal the Red Raiders a 9-4 loss in game two and set up a rubber game on Sunday afternoon at 2 p.m. in the series finale. The No. 22 Cowboys got a courageous outing from former OU pitcher Ben Abram as the 6-8, 262-pound fastball, slider, and curveball specialist didn’t have his best stuff but kept getting Tech hitters out and gis six innings help set the Cowboys pitching up for the finale on Sunday. 

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Tyler Wulfert home run trot.

Abram got support from Tyler Wulfert in the top of the second and again in the fourth inning as the junior from Farmington, NM coming off a quad strain hit solo home runs in each of those frames. Both of his roundtrippers, his second and third of the season came off Texas Tech ace Mason Molina. 

Abram was able to go six innings and gave up just six hits and one run to keep Oklahoma State in the game. He mostly stayed ahead in counts allowed his defense to help him which they did big on a couple of occasions. 

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Abram congratulated coming off after the sixth inning.

“His stuff was only about a six,” head coach Josh Holliday said of his starting pitcher. His courage was a 10 and that allowed him to keep going back out there. He really helped us get our bullpen back and situated for tomorrow.”

The Cowboys got fantastic glove gems from Marcus Brown wo had a diving stop that prevented a run from scoring and in fact, wound up being a double play as Brown threw to Roc Riggio at second for the force and then Riggio threw to Aiden Meola at third and caught the Tech runner off the bag for an unconventional double play.

Later Riggio had a diving stop and threw out the hitter at first , again for an important out that prevented a base hit and heelped kill a rally.

Oklahoma State put five runs up in the top of the eighth and that inning featured two home runs. A lead-off home run by Nolan McLean went out in rightfield and there is no telling how far it went. It looked like some of his tape measure shots at home that landed in the track facility and went well over 400-feet.

“Nolan has a lot of unique talents and one of them is being able to hit long home runs to the opposite field in right,” Holliday said. “I don’t know how he does it, but he does. I was really diappointed after the game Friday night and sat in my room staring at the wall, but I think I’ll eat dinner tonight.”

Roc Riggio will for sure as he added to his defensive gem with a three-run homer to close out the eighth. Gabe Davis came on and the freshman pitcher finished the game.

Oklahoma State ranked No. 12 is now 16-4/1-1 while No. 22 Texas Tech is 17-4/1-1. Sunday in Lubbick should be interesting.