Texas Tech University Athletics
Texas Tech Athletics
Texas
Richardson's Homer Helps Texas Tech Shock No. 5 Texas
April 11, 2012 | Softball
April 11, 2012
Box Score | Notes | 
Postgame Interviews/Highlights
LUBBOCK, Texas - Raven Richardson erased an early two-run deficit with a three-run homer that sent Texas Tech to its second victory over a top-five team in the past week as the Red Raiders topped No. 5 Texas, 5-2, Wednesday evening at Rocky Johnson Field.
Following Richardson's fourth-inning bomb, Tech (32-9; 5-4) added two more runs in the fifth and held off a Texas (32-5; 6-3) rally in the sixth to snap a nine-game losing streak to the Longhorns, who came into the game having already won the season series with two wins against the Red Raiders in early March.
Richardson's home run, her sixth of the season, ended somewhat of a slump for the senior, who came to the plate 0-for-11 in her last four games, including a second-inning strikeout. She quickly changed that, though, taking a 1-0 pitch from Blaire Luna deep over the wall in left.
Tech carried its momentum into the fifth as Cydney Allen singled home Sandy James and Richardson added her fourth RBI of the game with a bases-loaded walk. Richardson matched her career high with the four RBI, a feat she's accomplished four times as a Red Raider and only once this season.
With a lead now behind her, Tech starter Cara Custer (19-6) closed the door on the Longhorns as the freshman battled out of a pair of jams in the fifth and sixth before retiring Texas in order in the seventh.
Texas put the tying run on third in the fifth and loaded the bases with only out the following inning. Custer fought out of trouble both times, tough, getting a pop-up to the circle to end the fifth and then back-to-back strikeouts to escape the sixth.
Custer ended with four strikeouts in the game while surrendering only four hits en route to her 13th complete game of the year and third in Big 12 play.
Texas took an early lead in the first as an error by Richardson at short kept the inning going long enough for Nadia Taylor to drive a RBI single to left. Lexi Bennett put another run across in the third with a RBI single to center. The Red Raiders finished with three errors in the game, matching their season high.
Luna (13-2) took only her second loss of the season, the other coming in a 6-3 loss earlier this year to No. 1 California, as she was pulled with two outs in the fourth after giving the three runs off five hits.
Reliever Rachel Fox gave up only one hit over the final 2.1 innings but gave up the two runs in the fifth as she matched Luna with three walks in the game.
Tech had previously defeated then-No. 5 Oklahoma last Saturday in Norman to begin a stretch of facing 13-straight ranked opponents.
The Red Raiders continue that run this weekend as Tech travels to Columbia, Mo. to face 9th-ranked Missouri in a three-game series that opens at 6 p.m. Friday at University Field.
