Cowboys Claim Series Victory Thanks to Garrett Benge’s Bat

Unlike Friday, this was a fun ball game to watch. Pitchers’ duel, clean baseball, just like Abner Doubleday intended it to be. (Yes I know he technically didn’t invent the game, but whatever.)

It took a couple extra innings to do, but Garrett Benge and the Cowboys came out victorious over the No. 4-ranked Texas Tech Red Raiders 3-1 in 11 innings Sunday afternoon.

Garrett Benge had two of the seven Cowboy hits today, and they were two enormous hits. The first came in the top of the ninth to tie the game at one.

It’s only fitting that if it was Benge that plated the tying run, it should be him that plates the go-ahead (and ultimately game-winning) run, right? Benge was happy to oblige. What originally looked to be a typical single took a bad hop on the left fielder and rolled all the way to the wall, allowing Benge to make it to third.

Colin Simpson followed that up with a double for good measure, and plated the third run of the game for the Cowboys.

Blake Battenfield had the best outing for the Cowboys of the weekend, going 7.1 innings, while only allowing one run on four hits, walking one and striking out four. He provided some much-needed relief for the Cowboy bullpen, which had to work a lot Friday and Saturday.

Cole Hearrean came in and faced one batter, getting him to ground out.

Trey Cobb came in to pitch the last out of the eighth as well as the ninth. Cobb retired all five batters he saw, striking out one before calling it a day.

Carson Teel picked up the win for the Cowboys, moving him to 4-3 on the year, but it didn’t come easily. In the bottom of the tenth, the Red Raiders loaded the bases with one out, but thanks to a couple heads-up plays by Teel and Michael Neustifter kept the Red Raiders off the scoreboard and the game went on. In his two innings of work, Teel gave up two hits, one intentional walk, and struck out two batters - including Cam Warren to end the game.

Ryan Shetter had five shutout innings for TTU. He surrendered four hits and struck out eight Cowboys.

It was Jose Quezada who surrendered all three runs, though the first one was credited to John McMillon, who left after walking the first two Cowboys in the inning, only throwing nine pitches.

Quezada, who dropped to 3-4 after taking the loss, gave up two runs (one earned) on three hits. He struck out one batter and also threw a wild pitch that allowed Ryan Cash to move up and eventually score the game-winning run on the Benge RBI single.

Orlando Garcia was 2-for-4 at the plate for Tech, scoring the only run for the home team of the day on a solo home run in the seventh inning. It was the hit that chased Battenfield from the game.

With the win today, the Cowboys move to 23-16 on the season, with a 6-9 record in Big 12 play.

Up next, the Cowboys face Arkansas-Pine Bluff in Stillwater Tuesday at 6 p.m. before taking on the Texas Longhorns this weekend in Stillwater. With the series win, the Cowboys’ playoff chances are still alive, but they cannot afford to drop a series the rest of the year.