No. 3 Tech Travels To Wichita State For Weekend Series

Friday, March 24

Wichita, KS

8 p.m.

Texas Tech Athletics

Wichita State

No. 3 Tech Travels To Wichita State For Weekend Series

March 23, 2017 | Baseball

Texas Tech Notes Wichita State Notes Game 1 Stream Game 2 Stream Game 3 Stream Live Stats

The Red Raiders face the Shockers on March 24-26 at Eck Stadium on WatchESPN.com

LUBBOCK, Texas – The No. 3 Texas Tech baseball team hits the road for the second of three-straight weekend road trips, taking on Wichita State on March 24-26 at Eck Stadium.

Friday's series opener is slated for a 6 p.m. first pitch, with Saturday's game taking place at 2 p.m., followed by a 1 p.m. start on Sunday's getaway day. All three games will be available on WatchESPN.com and the ESPN app, as well as on the Texas Tech Sports Network on 97.3 FM and the TuneIn app. Live stats will also be available via TexasTech.Statbroadcast.com.

The Red Raiders (19-4) will square off with the Shockers (11-10) for the first time since 2005, when the two teams met in Los Angeles. Friday's contest will be the 28^th meeting between the two programs, as Wichita State holds the advantage in the all-time series. The last time Tech traveled to Wichita, Kansas, was in 1994, with the lone road victory coming in an 11-8 matchup in 1979. Each of the last two meetings in 1995 & 2005 were 10-inning classics, as Tech picked up a 7-6 win in Lubbock in the '95 matchup and dropped a 6-5 heartbreaker in the '05 game in LA.

Wichita State will hand the ball over to three right-hander's this weekend in: Chandler Sanburn, Zach Lewis and Tommy Barnhouse. Between the three, the Shocker trio has gone 4-3 over 45.0 innings pitched. Sanburn leads the three with a 2.19 ERA, appearing in seven games, starting one, along with a 12-5 strikeout-walk line. Lewis has started four games, piecing together a 4.26 ERA to go with 15 strikeouts and 11 walks, while Barnhouse has posted a 5.27 ERA over seven outings, including two starts, with a 12-2 strikeout-walk total.

On the flip side, the Shockers are hitting .243 this season, with Greyson Jenista leading the way with a .313 clip. In 21 games this season, Jenista has 26 hits, including six doubles, one triple and a homer, with 16 RBI and 10 runs scored. Wichita State's opponents have mustered up a .245 batting average against them this season, with total runs scored and given up dead even at 102 each.

Coming into Friday's game, the Shockers have only one loss at Eck Stadium, going 9-1 this season. Wichita State suffered their first home setback of the year on Wednesday night to Sacramento State.

The Red Raiders turn to their sophomore trio on the mound this weekend, with righty Davis Martin getting the nod on Friday night, followed by southpaw Steven Gingery & Ryan Shetter on Saturday & Sunday, respectively. The three are a combined 9-1 in 2017, each starting five games, racking up 90 strikeouts and only 24 walks in the process. Gingery leads the team and ranks third in the conference with a 1.23 ERA and fourth in the Big 12 in strikeouts with 36. Tech has gone 13-2 this year when one of the trio gets the starting nod.

The Red Raider bats have out-scored opponents 147-72 this season, racking up a .274 average in the process. Senior outfielder Ryan Long leads the squad with a .344 average, tallying 21 hits, 12 RBI and 13 runs scored. Closely behind him is another senior, infielder Hunter Hargrove, who has a .319 clip with a team-high 29 hits to go with 20 RBI and 21 runs. Five different Red Raiders have notched 20-hit campaigns already this year, as Tanner Gardner (26), Josh Jung (22) and Grant Little (20) join Long & Hargrove.

Earlier this week, Tech picked up its fifth-straight victory behind a two-game sweep of UNLV at Dan Law Field at Rip Griffin Park. The Red Raiders built up a five-run lead in game one of the series, getting a counter of five scoreless frames from freshman righty John Henry Gonzalez on Tuesday to take a 5-2 win over the Rebels. On Wednesday, Tech had to work back from down 3-1, getting some extra inning magic as UNLV walked in two runs in the 10^th inning to give the Red Raiders a walk-off walk and the 5-4 win.

The first three wins of the five-game stretch started in Austin as the Red Raiders earned the program's first ever sweep over UT to start conference play 3-0. Tech notched 28 hits against the Longhorns last weekend, including 15 in the series finale, while holding UT to just 10 over the three-game series. It was the ninth time this season Tech has recorded 10 or more hits in a game. In doing so, the Red Raiders pieced together a sweep of Texas for the first time in program history, taking games one & two, 2-1, followed by an 8-5 victory on Sunday.

With the wins, Tech improved to 3-0 in conference play for the first time since 1999. It also improved Tech's win streak against nationally-ranked opponents to six, previously taking down No. 8 Ole Miss, No. 2 LSU and No. 4 Arizona.

Speaking of rankings, after going 3-1 last week and improving to 19-4, the Red Raiders have become a consensus top-10 team as of March 20, climbing in all but one publication's poll from last week's spots. D1 Baseball and the USA Today Coaches Poll gave Tech its highest ranking of the year at No. 3 this week. The National College Baseball Writers Association (NCBWA) also moved the Red Raiders up to fourth, while Collegiate Baseball Newspaper held Tech in the same spot. The Red Raiders climbed three spots in both Perfect Game and Baseball America's latest rankings, moving to No. 5 and No. 8, respectively.

The Red Raiders have been ranked inside the top six of at least one poll in each of the last two seasons.

After the weekend series, Tech will return home to take on Texas Southern for another two-game midweek swing on March 28-29 at Rip Griffin Park .