History Repeats: Mark Finkner Relives the Stanford Vs Texas Tech Matchup From 1995
The play-by-play guy for the 1995 Red Raiders Mark Finkner came on The Raiderland with Ryan Hyatt this week heading into the Stanford matchup in the Lubbock Super Regional with Texas Tech.
Instead of previewing the 2021 Super Regional, the guys reminisced about 1995 when the 1 seeded Red Raiders went to Witchita, Kansas to lead the Midwest Regional. It was a different set up back then with eight 6-team regionals.
Texas Tech would open with Providence and light them up 24-6. Then Texas Tech beat Arkansas 14-10 to move to 2-0 in the regional setting up Texas Tech's first matchup with Stanford of the week. Texas Tech would go out of rotation to throw a kid who wanted to go to Stanford but was not offered by the Cardinal. He would throw a gem and Texas Tech would win 3-1 to move to undefeated in the regional.
Spoiler alert, Stanford would come all the way back to for a deciding game in the double-elimination regional, "You have the lead three to one." Finkner said on the Raiderland, "They take the lead, you come back to tie, they take the lead."
"They get an insurance run with two outs in the top of the ninth on a stolen base and an RBI single makes it six to four." It wasn't over though, Finkner continued, "Jason Totman hits a home run in the bottom of the ninth with one out, but then you fly out and ground out."
"As gut-wrenching loss in all the years I've called Tech sports, that that was an absolute gut-wrenching loss because if this team had gotten Omaha they were going to do damage."
You can listen to the entire interview here:
We also had Don Williams on the show to talk about the current matchup with Stanford coming up in 2021.