The Morning Stake | 2018.05.07

Briefly

This was a slightly slower weekend than we’ve been accustomed to. And everybody wish LaBarre well on his final exams coming up.

Eleven student-athletes were honored for their classroom work in conjunction with the Arthur Ashe, Jr. Sports Scholar Award, Cameron Batson was named as a semifinalist for the Male Sports Scholar Award (official site:

The recognized student-athletes were highlighted by recent NFL free agent signee Cameron Batson, who was a semifinalist for the Arthur Ashe Jr. Male Sports Scholar award. He was also a second-team honoree among nominated football student-athletes from across the country. Batson was joined among football student-athletes by Talor Nunez, a third-team recipient.

Tech had four student-athletes named to the first team for their respective sports, beginning with soccer’s Gwennie and Gabbie Puente. The twins were joined on the first team by two-time NCAA high jump champion Trey Culver.

Fellow track student-athletes Riley Gonzales (second team), Dorian Williams (second team) and Ebenether Wondaferew (third team) were also recognized as were men’s basketball standouts Justin Gray (third team) and Norense Odiase (third team).

What a terrific honor and for all eleven of those student athletes.

The men’s track team won it’s first ever dual meet championship (official site). I’m not exactly sure what that means and maybe someone smarter than me can help out. Whatever happened, I think the men’s team did really well. What I do understand is that the men’s and women’s teams competed in the Masked Rider Open on Saturday (official site) and combined with 20 top-3 finishes.

The ladies golf team will participate in the NCAA Austin Regional starting today and will be the No. 13 seed in this regional and will play in an 18 team field in a three-day tournament (official site).

The softball team will enter the Big 12 Tournament in Oklahoma City as the No. 5 seed in a pool format, and will play No. 3 Baylor on Friday at 2:00 p.m. and No. 2 Oklahoma State at 5:00 p.m. on Friday (Big 12 Sports).

Texas Tech Baseball

Well, another series loss and that’s becoming un-fun and a trend as Texas Tech dropped the series to Texas. Interesting listening to Tadlock after the game and he said that he still thinks that Shetter is a mid-week guy and he’ll start John McMillon on Tuesday and then McMillon will start on the third game, which happens to be Saturday as the weekend series starts on Thursday. Dallas Baptist comes to town on Tuesday, there will be a long break for finals, and then the team heads to Stillwater.

Texas Tech Basketball

One of Texas Tech’s key recruiting targets Kevin McCullar, will enroll in the spring semester (that’s January) of 2019 (Rivals):

One of the top prospects in the south and a strong four-star guard prospect that can play a variety of positions in the backcourt, McCullar discussed his intentions with Rivals.com. “I will be graduating in December and will redshirt in January before playing as a freshman for the 2019-2020 season,” he said. “All of the schools that have offered me have committed to holding a 2018 scholarship for me. I am going to release my final five schools and my official visit dates later here in May.”

Count Houston, Kansas State, Louisville, Minnesota, Oklahoma, TCU, Texas Tech, Virginia Tech and Xavier as the nine in the mix for an official visit and his ultimate commitment.

This means that teams are going to need to have a scholarship available in January and that really doesn’t always happen. If I’m thinking about this the right way, Texas Tech may have to leave a spot open.

Texas Tech Football

Kliff Kingsbury was inducted into the Texas High School Football Hall of Fame on Saturday night.

California running back Tre Watson was down to Texas and Texas Tech and ended up choosing the Longhorns (Twitter). I mentioned on the staff Slack chat that I’m more concerned about getting Matt Mooney (basketball transfer) than I was about getting Tre Watson.

Texas Tech also received the commitment of defensive back Duron Lowe on Sunday night (Twitter). I’ll hurriedly try to put together a profile.

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