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If you caught @TaylorHenry9’s weekly round up, you know what a weekend it was in college baseball. From the Frisco Classic to the Shriner’s Classic all the way out to LA and the Dodgertown classic, plenty of MLB parks and affiliates hosted college baseball tournaments with some great matchups.
Two of these tournament participants, #9 Arizona and #6 Texas Tech, will meet up on Tuesday for a rare mid-week top 10 matchup. These two also made it to Omaha last year, with Arizona advancing all the way to the CWS Final’s and losing a best of 3 series to Coastal Carolina.
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Once again, these teams are early favorites to be one of the final 8 to make it to Omaha. In what was supposed to be a rebuilding year for Texas Tech, the Red Raiders have come out to a red hot 11-2 start including a sweep of Cal and wins against Top 25 Ole Miss, and LSU. Arizona is off to a 10-1 start highlighted by wins against Arkansas and Oklahoma St.
This is the first top 10 match up in Lubbock for the Red Raiders under coach Tim Tadlock, although Tech and Arizona have met in 2013 to split a 2 game series. Texas Tech will send freshman John Henry Gonzalez to the mound. He’s made three appearances so far in the young season, and the Red Raiders have won all three games. He will face his toughest challenge of the season against a Wildcat team that is 3rd in country in batting average and doubles. They Arizona offense is being led by junior college transfer JR Mitchell Morimoto with a .465 batting average and 20 hits, which is good for 2nd in the Pac-12 so far. There’s no doubt Arizona is swinging some of the hottest bats in the country early in the season.
Arizona has also been pitching well early in the season and will be facing another hot line up led by SR Hunter Hargrove and JR Tanner Gardner. Hargrove has been 2 hits shy of the cycle twice already in the young season, and Gardner picked up the game winning hit against LSU to cap off an explosive offensive weekend in Frisco.
You can catch the game televised live from Dan Law Field in Lubbock, TX at 5:30 MST/4:30 PST on FSSW+ and Fox Sports Arizona.