Texas Tech Athletics
Gonzaga
Preview: No. 24 Tech welcomes Gonzaga to open season
February 16, 2023 | Baseball
GONZAGA at No. 24 TEXAS TECH
Lubbock, Texas | Rip Griffin Park
Feb. 17-20, 2023
- Friday, 1 p.m.: Watch | Listen | Stats | Tickets
- Saturday, 1 p.m.: Watch | Listen | Stats | Tickets
- Sunday, 1 p.m.: Watch | Listen | Stats | Tickets
- Monday, 11 a.m.: Watch | Listen | Stats | Tickets
PROMO HIGHLIGHTS
- Friday
- Join us for Opening Day baseball as we celebrate by decorating the stadium railings with red, white, and blue bunting. Posters will be available at the marketing table.
- Sunday
- Sunday Runday: At the conclusion of the game, kids will be allowed to run the bases. In addition, T-shirts will be given away to the first 300 fans.Â
The 2023 baseball season has finally arrived. No. 24 Texas Tech will host Gonzaga for a four-game set starting Friday afternoon at 1 p.m., which pits together a pair of 2022 regional qualifiers for a highly-competitive season-opening tilt at Dan Law Field at Rip Griffin Park. From last season's squad, opening weekend will feature a 39-man roster that includes 20 new faces in the dugout for the Red Raiders that finished 39-20 and fell short to Notre Dame in Statesboro Regional who later advanced to the College World Series, a place Tech is striving to return to for the first time since 2019.
Coverage will be provided via Big 12 Now on ESPN+. John Haris will have the call, alongside Mike Gustafson providing the analysis, from inside Rip Griffin Park, for all four games. The broadcast can be accessed from any desktop or laptop computer, personal cellular device and television streaming services using the ESPN app. Registration for the subscription service can be found at ESPNPlus.com.
Texas Tech Sports Network will also broadcast the game over 46 affiliates throughout the state of Texas and New Mexico as Jamie Lent will have the call alongside analyst, Chois Woodman on Friday, Saturday and Monday. Geoff Haxton and Jamie Lent will pair together for the Sunday call.Â
TEXAS TECHÂ IN THE NATIONAL RANKINGS
Once the 2022 season came to a close after its exit in the regional round, Texas Tech finished inside the Top 25 of all six national polls in the end-of-season rankings, extending a streak that started in 2016. Expectations remain the same in 2023 as the Red Raiders landed inside the Top 25 of all six national preseason polls.Â
- D1Baseball: No. 24
- Baseball America: 23
- NCBWA: No. 22
- Collegiate Baseball: 17
- USA Coaches: No. 21
- Perfect Game: No. 16
PROJECTED PITCHING MATCHUPS
- Friday, Feb. 17: RHP Kyle Robinson vs. RHP Owen Wild
- Saturday, Feb. 18: LHP Mason Molina vs. RHP Nathan Deschryver
- Sunday, Feb. 19: RHP Bo Blessie vs. LHP Bradley Mullan
- Monday, Feb. 20: TBA vs. RHP Ty Buckner
ARMED AND READY
While RHP Kyle Robinson (Fri.), LHP Mason Molina (Sat.) and RHP Bo Blessie (Sun.) got the starting nods opening weekend versus Gonzaga, a second trio could have easily been inserted into the mix in RHP Brendan Girton, RHP Trendan Parish and LHP Taber Fast according to head coach Tim Tadlock. Additional experienced arms waiting in the bullpen who each tossed more than 20.0+ innings last season include RHP Andrew Devine, RHP Brandon Beckel and RHP Travis Sanders. Red Raider southpaw Derek Bridges is anticipated to make his return at the end of March at the earliest as he recovers from an injury.
A GLANCE AT THE 2023 ROSTER
Opening weekend will feature a 39-man roster that includes 20 new faces in the dugout. Of the newcomers to Texas Tech, there are 13 that join the team coming out of high school while seven transferred into the program. Of the 19 Red Raiders that wore the scarlet and black in 2022, 12 from that group are pitchers while seven are position players. Four players qualified as "COVID seniors", an exemption by the NCAA that allowed the 35-man roster to grow to 39.
A RISING STAR
Hudson White returns in 2023 as arguably the most decorated player on the roster since having lost the likes of MLB first-round draft pick Jace Jung and fifth-round pick Brandon Birdsell. In addition to being named the 23rd Freshman All-American in program history, White was the Big 12 Freshman of the Year. He coupled that into an invite in the summer of 2022 to the Team USA training camp where he got to hone his skills alongside a collection of the best talent in the country.Â
TY COLEMAN NAMED PRESEASON ALL-AMERICAN
The National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association (NCBWA) named Ty Coleman to its preseason All-America First Team on Feb. 2. The fifth-year senior is set to enter his second season at Texas Tech since transferring from Texas A&M and made an instant impact on the 2022 team and will be a key piece to the 2023 team as one of four batters that were regularly featured in the starting lineup a season ago.
HOME COOKING
It's no secret there's something special about Texas Tech's home field. Since Dan Law Field at Rip Griffin Park opened in 2012, the Red Raiders are 259-75 (.775), a winning tradition cemented by Tim Tadlock and his coaching staff that arrived in 2013 and the fans that support them. Tadlock is 237-64 (.787) in home games since he arrived, and for the ninth consecutive year, the Texas Tech baseball allotment of season tickets sold out, the athletics department announced on Jan. 20. The department matched the season ticket sales record that was set last year, which is approaching the 2,800 ticket mark.Â
GO EARN IT
Texas Tech was voted third in the 2023 Big 12 Baseball Preseason Poll, sitting behind No. 1 TCU and No. 2 Oklahoma State and ahead of No. 4 Texas and No. 5 Oklahoma. Texas Tech was slotted third in the Big 12 preseason poll for the third time since 2017. The previous two times the Red Raiders finished higher than their prediction and advanced to an NCAA regional each time. Tech spent four-straight seasons at No. 1 in the preseason poll from 2018-21 and has been positioned third the past two seasons. Prior to 2017, third was the Red Raiders' highest preseason ranking since being picked third in 2000.Â
SNAPSHOT OF THE OPPONENT - GONZAGA
- Mark Machtolf (Stanford '87) enters his 20th season as the Bulldogs' head coach in 2022.
- This is his 31st year on staff at Gonzaga, as the Spokane native served 13 years as an assistant before taking over
- The skipper's career record at GU is 558-435-2. Like Texas Tech head coach Tim Tadlock, Machtolf has been head coach for one Division-I program in his career.
- Another similarity with coaching shared with Texas Tech is the assistants at Gonzaga have longevity with the program outside of newly hired assistant Antonio Garcia. Brandon Harmon (associate head coach) enters his 11th season while Sean Winston (assistant coach) enters his eighth season.Â
- Machtolf is a five-time WCC Coach of the Year (2009, 2013, 2017, 2021, 2022).
- The Bulldogs have gone to the NCAA Tournament five times under Machtolf (2009, 2016, 2018, 2021, 2022).Â
- Gonzaga won its second consecutive WCC regular season title in 2022 and was awarded the No. 2-seed in the Blacksburg Regional.Â
- Gonzaga was picked to repeat as WCC champs in 2023 in the league's annual preseason poll.Â
- Gonzaga's DH Cade McGee (2022 WCC Freshman of the Year), INF Savier Pinales, OF Grayson Sterling and RHP Owen Wild were each named the 2023 WCC preseason team.Â
- RHP Owen Wild was named a 2023 Preseason Second Team All-American by Collegiate Baseball Newspaper.
- Gonzaga is located in Spokane, Wash. and has an enrollment of 7,501.
SERIES HISTORY - GONZAGA
- This weekend's four-game series to open the 2023 season between Texas Tech & Gonzaga will nearly double the all-time meetings between the two programs as Friday's meeting will be the 6th all-time between the two.Â
- Tech averages 7.0 runs per game against the Zags in the all-time series
- Tech is 21-11 all-time against members of the West Coast Conference; its last match versus a WCC was Gonzaga in 2021. Prior to the Bulldogs, the last WCC opponent was in 2018 when the Red Raiders topped San Diego in a midweek home game, 11-6.
LAST TIME VS. GONZAGA
The Red Raiders met Gonzaga two seasons ago at Rip Griffin Park for a two-game set, March 9-10, 2021, but despite the recent meeting, the two have only played five all-time games which Texas Tech leads, 4-1. The last time the two met was a Tuesday-Wednesday pairing, and on both nights, Tech used clutch late-inning hits to pull away. On Tuesday, a three-run, go-ahead double by Nate Rombach in the bottom of the seventh helped Tech baseball pull out a 5-4 win and on Wednesday Jace Jung delivered a go-ahead double, this time in the eighth inning to score two runs and break a 3-3 tie that helped deliver a 5-4 for the second-straight evening.
BIG 12 CHAMPIONSHIPÂ
The 2023 Phillips 66 Big 12 Baseball Championship, will be hosted at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas, May 24-28. For info on attending and tickets, visit Big12Sports.com.
 --TECH--
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