FROM PRESS RELEASE
LUBBOCK, Texas — In need of a solid performance from a starting pitcher, the No. 18 Texas Longhorns received such an effort with Riley Boening pitching UT to a 4-3 win over the Texas Tech Red Raiders Saturday afternoon at Dan Law Field.
Boening (1-0), who missed all of 2007 with a shoulder injury, logged his longest start of the season. He yielded two runs on eight hits and one walk over 6.1 innings.
Texas broke the scoring seal with a pair of two-run home runs in the top of the first inning. With two outs, Jordan Danks drew a walk and scored on a Brandon Belt dinger over the rightfield fence. Russell Moldenhauer kept the rally going with a single through the left side of the infield and scored on a two-run moon shot by Preston Clark over the leftfield fence.
Tech starter Chad Bettis settled down and didn’t allow a hit over the next five innings to get the Red Raiders back in the game.
The Red Raiders scored two runs in the second. Doug Thennis hit a leadoff single to centerfield and moved to second on a balk. A looping hit by Monk Kreder dropped along the leftfield line for a double, putting runners at second and third. Taylor Asbhy drove in Thennis with a sacrifice fly and Willie Rueda singled to push Kreder across cutting the margin to 4-2.
Tech trimmed the lead to 4-3 with a run in the eighth. With two outs, Thennis walked and Kreder was hit by a pitch to set up an RBI double down the leftfield line by Ashby. With runners at second and third, Longhorns; reliever Keith Shinaberry came into record the final out of the inning, inducing a fly ball by Tanner Rindels.
The Longhorns had a chance to add insurance runs but stranded a runner at third in each of the last three innings, including with one out in both the eighth and ninth.
Brandon Workman earned his first save of the season retiring all three batters he faced in the ninth.
Cameron Rupp prolonged his team-high hit streak to 16 games, going 2-for-3 with one double. Jordan Danks had his 14-game hit streak snapped.
Texas returns to UFCU Disch-Falk Field for a 6:05 p.m. contest against Oral Roberts on Monday, March 24.
