ARLINGTON — Tracer Lopez, Nolen Hester and Kevin Bazzell delivered run-scoring singles with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning as Texas Tech rallied past Oklahoma 10-9 in one of two winners' bracket finals Thursday in the Big 12 tournament at Globe Life Field.
Dylan Maxcey started a Tech comeback from a 9-5 deficit with a two-run homer in the seventh inning.
With one out in the ninth, Zac Vooletich singled and Hudson White walked. After Maxcey struck out, Lopez's base hit to right-center narrowed the gap to 9-8, and Hester tied it with a single up the middle. Gage Harrelson followed with an infield hit that loaded the bases and Bazzell's single off the glove of third baseman Wallace Clark ended it.
"It says a lot about the grittiness of our guys, how tough they are," Tech coach Tim Tadlock said of the comeback.
The victory gave the Red Raiders a day off before they play at 12:30 p.m. Saturday against Oklahoma State or Oklahoma in the tournament's top-bracket final game. Tech needs one victory to advance to Sunday's championship game with the Cowboys-Sooners winner having to beat the Red Raiders twice on Saturday to advance.
Here are some quick observations from the game:
Finally, early success at the Big 12 tournament
Texas Tech has enjoyed a lot of postseason success during different stretches, but recently that's mainly been in the NCAA tournament rather than the conference tournament.
One must go back all the way to 1998 for the last time Tech had won its first two games in the Big 12 tournament. Only twice since — in 2000 and in 2019 — had the Red Raiders won more than game in the Big 12 tournament.
Bazzell hung in there
Kevin Bazzell's game-winning hit snapped a 0-for-9 streak for him in the tournament. He was 0-for-5 with two strikeouts and two foul pop-outs in Wednesday's opener against West Virginia. In his second trip Thursday, he came up with the bases loaded and grounded into an inning-ending double play.
When he came up with the bases loaded again in the ninth, he hit one too hard for third baseman Wallace Clark to handle, and it made the Red Raiders walk-off winners.
"This game's hard," Bazzell said. "Some guys make it look easy, but it's not. Just hang in there, try to put good swings on it, swing at good pitches. That's all I'm trying to do. Just happy we got that one."
Nolen Hester, on at any cost
The Tech leadoff batter reached base in all six of his plate appearances with three singles, two walks and being hit by pitch. He's come to the plate 11 times in the Red Raiders' first two games of the tournament and gotten on nine times, though not without some pain.
In a 6-2 win Wednesday against West Virginia, Hester took a pitch off the inside of his left ankle. On Thursday, he took a pitch off his right calf. Both times, he came up yelping.
Free 90s killed the Red Raiders
Texas Tech pitchers walked nine batters, hit one and uncorked three wild pitches. Throw in that freshman catcher Dylan Maxcey yielded three passed balls before the game's second batter had completed his plate appearance.
Any way you slice it, that's a lot of extra real estate 90 feet at a time. Six of the nine batters who walked came around to score. Somehow, the Red Raiders overcame it all.
Maxcey took the blame for the passed balls.
"One of the hardest things to do as a catcher is try to face the fake bunt," he said. "You've got to figure out how to get above it, how to get below it. It took me longer than it should to make that adjustment.
"Taber threw the ball well. He was around the zone. That's on me for not helping his confidence. I made the adjustment and we were good after the first inning, but it wasn't anything Taber was doing. It was just me."
Taber Fast, the bad and the good
The Tech freshman lefthander failed to retire the game's first five batters, yielding a leadoff single and sandwiching three walks around a hit batter. Fast did a high-wire act and got out of that inning with only one run allowed. Maxcey and Fast nailed John Spikerman trying to score from second on a passed ball, and with one out and the bases loaded, third baseman Kevin Bazzell started a double play.
Fast's first time through the order, seven of nine batters reached against him. Fast settled down the second time through the order, one Sooners batter reaching on an error and another on an infield single.
"That's ironic. I love the guy," Tadlock said. "I thought he was very present. I thought he competed. I thought his pitch to pitch was pretty good. We really never felt like there was a time, 'Hey, we've got to go get this guy' in the first, even though it looked bad from the standpoint of balls going everywhere.
"All along throughout the year, Taber's one of those guys that's a baseball player. I like him hitting. I like him pitching. I like him playing in the outfield. But as far as him today on the mound, I thought his presence was really good."
Tadlock might have asked him to face one too many hitters, though. With the bases loaded and two outs in the fourth, Bryce Madron hit a hot shot to first. Gavin Kash knocked it down, but had no play at first and then threw late to the plate as two runs scored. That made it 5-0 and ended Fast's night.
Dylan Maxcey, the bad and the good
After not being on the same page with his batterymate at the start of the game, Maxcey had a big night at the plate with two doubles and a home run.
The homer was his fourth of the season, and the two-run shot in the seventh inning brought Tech within 9-7.
"When you do something like that to hurt the team on the defensive side," he said, "the way I've always thought is there's always something you can do to help it on the offensive side."
Thank you very much
Tech narrowed a 5-0 deficit to 5-4 after being gifted two extra outs in the fourth. Sooners second baseman Jackson Nicklaus committed a throwing error that allowed the leadoff batter to reach and then dropped a pop fly off Maxcey's bat with two outs.
The Red Raiders' first run scored on the dropped popup that should have ended the inning. Then Tracer Lopez, Hester and Gage Harrelson followed with RBI singles.
Though all four runs were unearned, it ended Braden Carmichael's streak of 14 1/3 scoreless innings that began two appearances before. The Sooners lefthander was coming off a complete-game, 5-0 shutout of Oklahoma State in the last regular-season series last week.
