Texas Tech University Athletics
Texas Tech Athletics
New Mexico
Red Raiders Hammer New Mexico 21-8
February 04, 2002 | Baseball
Feb. 4, 2002
Albuquerque, N.M. - After being held to just two hits on Sunday afternoon in a 5-3 loss, the Texas Tech offense regrouped and pounded out 20 hits for the second time in three days and the Red Raiders defeated the New Mexico Lobos 21-8 on Monday afternoon at Lobo Field. With Monday's win, Texas Tech wins the series 2-1.
Texas Tech's Austin Cranford drew a two-out walk in the top of the first inning and senior Nick Blankenship belted his fourth home run of the season in the next at-bat to give the Red Raiders and early 2-0 lead. New Mexico capitalized on two Texas Tech defensive errors in the bottom half of the inning and tied the score at 2-2. Lobo right fielder Anthony Lovato brought in both runs for New Mexico with a two-out single to left field.
Texas Tech opened up the game in the fourth inning when Bryon Smith hit a two run home run over the left-center field fence. The home run was Smith's first of the season. Senior catcher Willie Durazo kept the inning going with a double to left while Jake Brown and Joel Buchenauer followed with singles to give Tech a 5-2 lead. Austin Cranford pushed the Red Raider lead to 7-2 with a two-out two-run single to right.
New Mexico's Julio Guerrero led off the bottom half of the fourth inning with a triple to right field and Tech starter Nathan Fouts walked the next two batters to load the bases. Reliever Justin Cleveland walked in a run for New Mexico as he was unable to retire the left-handed hitting Matt Young. Steve Gooch came in to face the next New Mexico batter and gave up a three-run double to right field. New Mexico tied the score at seven on a sacrifice fly by Matt Alexander before the Tech defense was able to turn a double play to end the inning.
Texas Tech regained the lead in the next two innings as Tech scored two runs in the fifth and three runs in the sixth to take a 12-8 lead. Jake Brown and Gera Alvarez each tallied their first multiple hit games of the season as both had RBI singles in the sixth.
Nick Blankenship picked up his second hit of the day when he hit an RBI double to right-center field that scored Tyler Carson who led off the seventh inning with a walk. Gera Alvarez capped off the inning with his first home run of the season, a solo shot over the left-center field wall to give Tech a 15-8 lead.
Steve Gooch picked up his first win of the season after tossing five innings giving up three hits and two runs. New Mexico used seven pitchers on the afternoon and the combined staff walked 11 and struckout just five but it was Jeremy Deyapp who suffered the loss and fell to 0-1 on the year.
