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STILLWATER – Kollin Ritchie’s home run with one out in the ninth inning lifted Oklahoma State to a 7-6 win over TCU in Friday’s series opener at O’Brate Stadium.
Read more: Cowboy Baseball Wins Opener in Walk-Off Fashion
With the victory, the Cowboys snapped TCU’s seven-game winning streak and improved to 29-17 overall and 12-10 in Big 12 play. The Horned Frogs are now 29-16 and 13-9 in the league.
Ritchie’s walk-off homer was his third long ball of the contest, marking his second three-homer game of the season. He is the fifth Cowboy in program history to hit three or more round-trippers in a game multiple times in a career, joining Roy York, Adam Carr, Trevor Boone and Nolan Schubart.
Ritchie, who was 4-for-4 in the game, now has 25 home runs on the season, the most by a Cowboy since Lamont Matthews had 30 in 1999.
Danny Wallace also homered for the Pokes, while Aidan Meola was 2-for-3 with a pair of RBIs.
Hudson Barrett picked up the win on the mound, keeping the Frogs off the scoreboard over the final 1 2/3 innings and striking out four.
Ethan Lund took the mound to open the game and pitched 4 2/3 innings, allowing five runs and striking out 10. The southpaw reached the 100-strikeout mark on the season with his final strikeout of the day, becoming the 20th Cowboy to reach that milestone; the feat has now been achieved 24 times in program history.
Lund faced trouble in the first, walking his first two hitters to set up the Horned Frogs with runners at the corners and nobody out. The southpaw went on to strike out the next two batters before extinguishing the threat with an inning-ending pickoff.
OSU jumped on top in the bottom of the opening frame. Alex Conover led off with a walk, and Ritchie laced a double to put a pair in scoring position for Meola, who hit a ball off the top of the wall in right-center field for a double to give the Pokes an early 2-0 lead.
Lund continued where he left off in the first, striking out five through scoreless second and third innings.
In the bottom of the third, Ritchie deposited his 23rd home run of the season into the right-field bleachers, a solo shot to extend the lead to 3-0.
TCU got to Lund in the fourth as Chase Brunson hit a two-run home run to cut the deficit to one, and the Horned Frogs put together another big inning in the fifth, pushing across four runs to take a 6-3 lead.
The fifth saw Lund surrender his second homer in as many innings, this time a three-run shot off the bat of Nolan Traeger. Noah Wech then came out of the bullpen but was greeted by a home run from the first batter he saw.
Wallace responded in the bottom of the inning by hitting a leadoff home run to the opposite field, bringing the Pokes within two. OSU scratched across another run in the frame when a TCU throwing error allowed Ritchie to go from first-to-home to make the score 6-5.
OSU tied the game in the bottom of the seventh on Ritchie’s second home run of the game. The blast marked Ritchie’s fourth multi-home run game of the season.
Barrett took the mound in relief of Kai Fyke with one out in the eighth. After walking the first batter he faced, he struck out the next two to end the inning.
The Cowboys loaded the bases with one out in the bottom of the inning on a single, error and walk but couldn’t bring in the go-ahead run as a pair of strikeouts ended the threat.
Barrett stayed on for the ninth and tallied two more strikeouts to set the stage for Ritchie’s heroics.
The two teams return to action Saturday at 6 p.m.