Texas Tech baseball got off to a hot start scoring 65 runs over the weekend series to begin their season.

After one weekend, Tech finds itself ranked first in four categories, those being slugger percentage, on-base percentage, home runs, and batting average. In addition, some players have already put themselves in the national spotlight. Today, senior infielder Brain Klein was named as one of the 36 players on the Bobby Bragan Collegiate Slugger Award watch list.

Also, freshmen Nate Rombach and Jace Jung received awards for being the Big 12’s Player and Newcomer of the Week awards. To say the least, baseball is back in Lubbock.

The Red Raiders will hit the road to Round Rock, Texas to take part in the Round Rock Classic featuring the Houston Cougars, Stanford Cardinal and Tennessee Volunteers. Tech will hit the field on Friday at 7 p.m. to face the Vols, Saturday at 6 p.m. meeting with the Cardinal, and wrapping up the Classic with an afternoon 3 p.m. first pitch against the Cougars.

After an impressive opening weekend, head coach Tim Tadlock will go with the same three starters in Round Rock with Clayton Beeter, Austin Becker and Bryce Bonnin, each getting a win in their starts.

“I think more than anything it’s an opportunity for them to go find some rhythm and timing,” Tadlock said. “A chance to extend the pitch count a little bit further out. We’ll have an opportunity, I’m sure, to throw a bunch of guys, but really giving those guys a second week is the right thing to do.”

Tadlock talked about the value about playing in a tournament-like format especially early in the season, which his Red Raiders will see in Round Rock.

“Lot of value in the competition,” Tadlock said. “I think it definitely put a premium on playing good baseball that day.”

Jumping from Northern Colorado and Houston Baptist to Stanford, Houston and Tennessee can and will present a bigger challenge to the batters, however.

“I don’t know if you’re going to see better than the guy we saw last Friday,” Tadlock noted the pitcher from Houston Baptist. “I thought he was really good, thought both of those teams we played last weekend has some decent bullpen arms, last couple of guys from Northern Colorado threw and the conditions were tough. At the same time, we like to look at it from a positive standpoint. It’s really hard to go hit without a guy standing on the mound. So, we’re hoping the run somebody out there.”

Following Friday, it won’t get any easier as the Red Raiders will continue to face top-tier programs in Stanford and Houston. Tadlock talked about the respect he had for each program.

“Both of those teams will be really good for us to go compete against them,” Tadlock said. “They both got good arms, both have good players. All their players have played a lot of baseball, just like ours have. So, I think everybody’s in a different spot right now going into week two. A lot of times, I think both of those teams probably didn’t play to the level they’re capable of opening weekend. They will probably tell you. I’m sure they’ve had a good week of practice and are looking forward to the opportunity to play this weekend.”

Junior Dylan Neuse is off to a solid start at the plate after one weekend of play with a .571 batting average. Of course, you also have Jung and Rombach dominating the plate as well.

After the opening weekend, Neuse said they handled it they should have.

“Offensively, we kind of exploded,” Neuse said. “After that first day, it wasn’t the best conditions, but the starter (from Houston Baptist) had something with his fastball, had a lot of spin to it, didn’t adjust as early as we could have, but the next two days we did what we should have.”

Neuse talked about how this coming weekend can bring out the positives and negatives from this team so they can get better.

“It’ll pick the things out that we need to get better at,” Neuse said, “and see what competition we can compete against.”

This “series” will be unique due to Tech facing three different team three different days. Neuse talked about the challenge that will represent.

“On a regular three-game series, you’ll see pretty much the same lineups,” Neuse said. “You know how everyone’s going to hit, how they play, how the coach calls pitches, things like that. With the three-game series with different teams, you don’t get that aspect. You kind of go out there. You don’t know as much about the team. You just go out there and play ball, do what you can, control what you can.”

“Like I said, it’s going to be good for us, both positive and negative, see what we can get better at and what we’re good at.”