The Morning Stake: April 5th

Texas Tech Softball

Preview | Red Raiders Host Abilene Christian in Midweek Matchup
📰: https://t.co/QN1Pc3cBPo #WreckEm #TIHWR pic.twitter.com/xsTJvvwc3w

— Texas Tech Softball (@TexasTechSB) April 4, 2017

Texas Tech Volleyball

Preview | Red Raiders Welcome Wayland Baptist Wednesday
📰: https://t.co/ZPBlB2T5IU #WreckEm #TIHWR pic.twitter.com/MF2NfzqEnq

— TexasTech Volleyball (@TexasTechVB) April 4, 2017

Texas Tech Tennis

Women’s Tennis Moves Up in Latest Oracle/ITA Rankings
📰: https://t.co/QEzxbNgsmo pic.twitter.com/QGc3cnKAVe

— Texas Tech Tennis (@TexasTechTennis) April 4, 2017

Texas Tech Baseball

Texas Tech whipped up on New Mexico State, 15-4 yesterday afternoon (Recap | Box Score). Caleb Killian got the start and pitched 2 innings, allowing 3 hits and a run. Five other pitchers got in some work: Erikson Lanning, Jake McDonald, Parker Mushinski, Ty Harpenau and Caleb Freeman. Lanning and Mushinski gave up the additional runs, Mushinski is kinda in a bad way right now.

The offense pounded out 21 hits on the day, so there was a ton of offense to go around. It was good to see Tanner Gardner back in play going 1 for 3, only as a DH, which is fine because Cody Farhat it on fire right now as he went 2 for 4 with 3 runs scored. Grant Little went 4 for 5 with 4 runs scored. Michael Davis went 3 for 4 with 2 RBI, Josh Jung went 1 for 5 with 3 RBI, and Michael Berglund went 4 for 6 with 3 RBI. There’s more offense there.

Texas Tech Football

Buy your very own Staking The Plains t-shirt at the Staking The Plains Threadless Shop. Click on that danged shirt (or the link).

ESPN’s Max Olson runs down who he thinks are the 10 best players on the team and you can go read 1 through 9, but here’s #10:

10. DE Eli Howard: Here’s a sleeper pick to make a big impression this fall. Howard sat out all of last season after transferring in from North Texas, and Gibbs says he shined on the Red Raiders’ scout team. He can provide a quality pass rushing threat off the edge, and this defense could use one.

Miscellaneous . . .

Football Study Hall’s Bill Connelly has a neat ranking. He grouped all of the quarterbacks into three categories, Statues, Dual Threats and Runners and then ranked them all (just for fun). Shimonek qualified as a statue (just because of the lack of opportunities to run, but that’s probably correct and grades out at the 86% percentile, which is pretty good considering his overall lack of stats (it’s good to play Kansas unless you’re UT).