Texas Tech University Athletics
Tech's Road to Omaha
October 18, 2014 | Baseball
The Red Raiders' historic 2014 season ended with the first trip to the College World Series in school history.
BY BRITTON DROWN
Special to TexasTech.com
At the time, it was just a simple text message. An image of TD Ameritrade Park in Omaha, illustrating the end of a journey.
That journey was still months away, and the ballpark still that - a symbol. Abstract in the moment, and in the history of Texas Tech baseball. The Red Raiders had never reached the epicenter of college baseball, which converges on the plains of Nebraska each summer.
A photo was all they had.
So perhaps it was the unfamiliarity and the irony of the moment that explains why it was one of the very first images to enter senior Devon Conley's mind as he slid across the outfield at Rip Griffin Park more than six months later in the midst of the most iconic play in Texas Tech history.
With two outs in the bottom of the seventh, the Red Raiders clenching tightly to a precious 1-0 lead in Game 2 of the program's first-ever Super Regional, College of Charleston threatened with the tying run just 180 feet away on second base. On a 1-2 pitch, Champ Rowland sent a line drive into right-center field, certainly out of the reach of Conley in center field.
"I knew the way it was hit that if I was going to be able to make a play, I was going to have to go all out," he said.
The Rio Rancho, New Mexico native took off, sprinting from center towards right field in a race against gravity's pull on the five-ounce baseball. Closing in, Conley left his feet, stretched parallel to the field turf below and reached his glove hand as far as it could extend.
Conley didn't know he caught the ball until he opened his eyes and it rested there in his glove.
"I still don't know how I caught that ball," Conley said.
The reaction was pandemonium. Right fielder Stephen Smith leapt over Conley, who now lay motionless on the turf, and pumped a `Guns Up' in the air. Relief pitcher Dominic Moreno paced slowly off the mound, hands on his head, fighting a dichotomy of disbelief and elation.
That disbelief on the field contrasted with perhaps the most deafening roar in the ballpark's history as more than 4,800 in attendance, a crowd that sold out the stadium in less than 40 minutes when tickets went on sale, erupted.
They could taste Omaha.
"It was as loud of a baseball stadium as I've been in," Texas Tech head coach Tim Tadlock said. "It was quite electric."
Conely's catch ignited the Red Raiders and simultaneously deflated Charleston. The Red Raiders wouldn't allow another base runner, with six straight outs through the eighth and ninth inning to seal its first-ever ticket to Omaha.
***
It was a Tuesday afternoon in November 2011 when Texas Tech announced the baseball program was bringing one of its own back to the South Plains. A soft-spoken, humble, yet undeniably driven coach who helped take Big 12 rival Oklahoma to the College World Series in 2010.
The hire made a splash on the national college baseball scene, but what made the Tadlock hire so significant was two-fold. Texas Tech was getting an elite coach known nationally for his ability to both recruit and discover some of the game's top talent.
But he was also a Texas Tech guy.
"I was ready to come back," Tadlock said. "You didn't have to ask twice. I was really excited about coming back and what we could do out here."
Tadlock played in 120 games as a Red Raider during a two-year career at Tech. In 1991, he was part of the first team in Lubbock to win 40 games as the Red Raiders went 42-18.
Exactly 20 years later, he stood in the Masked Rider Lobby in the south end zone building at Jones AT&T Stadium as the associate head coach, and spoke to the near future of the baseball program. A future he knew at the time was in a position to propel forward.
"I think this program is ready to take off," he said that day.
After one season in Lubbock, Tadlock was named the head coach in 2012, and immediately he hit the recruiting trail to build Texas Tech into one that truly took that flight. One of the first steps in that process, Tadlock added experience around him in assistant coach/recruiting coordinator J-Bob Thomas and pitching coach Ray Hayward as both respected coaches joined Tadlock's initial staff.
The Red Raiders went 26-30 in Tadlock's first season in 2013, a building block for what was to come. The head coach knew as the 2014 season approached, that pieces were falling into place.
"A combination of things happened," Tadlock said. "But more than anything I think guys started going out and playing the game the right way...there were some stepping stones there."
As the fall approached, Tadlock had a request for Thomas who was recruiting near Nebraska; take a photo of TD Ameritrade Park. He wanted to show his 2014 team where they had the potential to play that season.
***
That text message is no longer on Conely's phone, but he doesn't need it.
On June 15, he became the first Red Raider in school history to start in center field at the College World Series. That image of TD Ameritrade Park had, through 45 victories, morphed into concrete reality. And for a few moments before the 2 p.m. first pitch that day, he took a moment to let the Omaha summer air sink in.
"To actually make it, the year he sent out that photo, in my senior season it was just amazing," Conley said. "When you play college baseball, your ultimate goal is the play in the College World Series."
Tadlock led the Red Raiders to the largest turnaround in school history in 2014 and the second biggest turnaround in Big 12 history - going from 26 wins in 2013 to 45 in 2014. A 73 percent leap in win total in just a single season.
The 45 wins in 2014 were the fourth most in program history while the Red Raiders were ranked in 18 consecutive national polls and won the program's first-ever regional championship.
The turnaround earned Tadlock a flood of national recognition as he was named the 2014 College Baseball Hall of Fame Skip Bertman National Coach of the Year and the Midwest Region Coach of the Year.
Those accolades didn't surprise the Red Raider family, including junior catcher Hunter Redman who earned All-Big 12 honorable mention and was an eighth-round draft pick by the Los Angeles Dodgers during his only season at Tech in 2014.
"He is the best coach in the country and I have no doubt saying that," Redman said. "I believe that."
But for Tadlock the success of 2014 came back to the team.
"With our roster of 34 guys we felt like we could play with anybody on any given day," Tadlock said. "This team realized if you do things the right way you tend to get rewarded."
