KU Athletics
LUBBOCK, Texas – A windy Friday night that featured seven home runs combined between Kansas and Texas Tech ended with a walk-off homer as Texas Tech defeated Kansas 8-7 in 10 innings at Dan Law Field at Rip Griffin Park. Luke Leto, Collier Cranford, Michael Brooks and Cole Elvis all homered for Kansas.
The Jayhawks battled all game, coming back from a four-run deficit early and a two-run deficit late. Leto and Cranford hit back-to-back home runs to help tie the game at 4-4 in the fourth. Then, Elvis hit a game-tying home run in the eighth that ultimately pushed the game to extra innings. Texas Tech’s Gavin Kash hit a walk-off home run to end it with two outs in the 10th.
Texas Tech (36-19, 11-12 Big 12) took the lead first on Friday for a second straight day. Three runs in the second inning and one run in the third gave the Red Raiders a 4-0 advantage. Dillon Carter hit a solo home run in the second and Austin Green had a solo shot in the third.
The deficit did not faze the Jayhawks. In the fourth inning, KU scored four runs to tie up the game. The inning began with singles from Elvis and Sam Hunt. Jake English drove in Elvis from third base on an RBI fielder’s choice for the first run of the inning. Leto was up next and crushed a 472-foot home run to right field to make it 4-3. Cranford followed Leto and went back-to-back with a solo homer to even the game at 4-4.
The Red Raiders loaded the bases in the bottom of the fourth with no outs. They were able to get two runs in the inning on a pair of sacrifice flies. That made the score 6-4 in favor of Texas Tech.
The teams exchanged runs in the fifth inning. Brooks launched a solo home run for his eighth blast of the season. The Red Raiders got the run back in the bottom half of the inning on an RBI single by Nolen Hester. After five innings, Texas Tech led 7-5.
Neither team scored in the sixth or seventh innings, but Elvis had a big moment for a second straight night. In the eighth, Brooks led off the inning with a single. Elvis came up next and hit an opposite field home run to right to tie the game at 7-7. He hit a go-ahead home run in the ninth inning on Thursday.
After a scoreless ninth inning, the game went to extras. Kansas left a runner stranded on first in the top half of the 10th. The Jayhawks were able to get the first two outs in the bottom of the 10th, but Kash sent a 3-2 pitch out to right field to win it.
Hunter Cashero started for Kansas and allowed four runs over 2.2 innings. Ethan Bradford, Kolby Dougan, Steven Andrews and Stone Hewlett followed out of the bullpen for Kansas. Andrews threw a scoreless inning of relief. Hewlett suffered the loss after giving up the walk-off home run.