Army Eliminated in Lubbock Regionals after blowout losses to Texas Tech and Florida

Coming off a tough loss to Texas Tech, Army (35-26), fell during the second round of the Lubbock Texas Regionals of the NCAA baseball tournament on Saturday to Florida (34-25), 13-5. Let’s take a look at Army’s performance of the course of the last two days.

As the fourth-seeded team in the Lubbock Regional, the Black Knights faced a tough test in #8 Texas Tech after securing their spot in regionals play by defeating Harvard, 8-3. However, I doubt anyone expected such a lopsided victory for the Red Raiders.

Texas Tech opened up the scoring with three runs in the first inning and hardly looked back. By the time Army got on the board in the sixth, Texas Tech had already padded their lead with 5 more runs. When the dust settled after nine innings, the Red Raiders walked away with an 11-2 victory over the Black Knights.

The Black Knights did manage 6 hits and their pitching staff accounted for five strikeouts over the course of the game. They will have to tighten things up on defense after allowing seven hits and five runs through two innings during Daniel Burggraaf’s outing on the mound.

In the contest against Florida, Army needed to rebound. Florida’s loss to Dallas Baptist was a high-scoring (11-8) affair. The Gators went almost tit-for-tat against DBU, until the bottom of the eighth inning when Dallas Baptist broke away with three runs and managed to stifle a Florida comeback in the ninth.

However, on Saturday afternoon, the Gators pace set the tone for the rest of the afternoon. During the first five innings Florida made 11 runs, leaving Army behind early on.

A pair of two-run homers, once in the second inning and again in the fourth, continued to stretch the lead for the Black Knights. By the fourth, the Gators were up 7-0. It wouldn’t be until the sixth inning for the Black Knights when Josh White the first hit and run of the game when he homered to left center.

Tyler Giovinco allowed eight hits and seven runs during 3 1/3 innings while Matt Hudgins managed two runs batted in,

With four runs in the ninth, the Black Knights weren’t able to gain their momentum in time, The Gators managed nine strikeouts that afternoon while Army only saw two.

While Army was eliminated in this round, the team saw major firsts and milestones in the 2019 season including a second-straight Patriot League conference crown, single season records for bats (1947) and walks (348), and top-ten finishes among the league in runs and stolen bases.