April 13, 2004
Texas Tech junior 1B Josh Brady of Lindon, Utah, Texas sophomore pitcher Sam LeCure of Centertown, Mo., and Texas A&M junior pitcher Zach Jackson of Cranberry Township, Pa., have been named Phillips 66 Big 12 Conference Baseball Player of the Week and Pitcher of the Week, respectively, in voting by a select panel of media covering Big 12 baseball for games played from Apr. 6-12.
Brady drove in eight runs with five hits, including a double, triple and homer as the Red Raiders became the first Big 12 team to win a weekend series against Nebraska at Hawks Field in Lincoln. He was 8-for-19 (.421) for the 3-1 week at Tech with a pair of home runs and nine RBI and helped the squad roll up 36 runs in the four contests. Texas Tech downed the Huskers 10-7 and 10-3 in the final two games to become the first team to capture a Big 12 series at NU since Missouri in 2001.
LeCure worked a pair of games in relief and as a starter at Kansas State with a nine-inning complete game performance as he propelled Texas to consensus No. 1 nationally this week. He paced the Longhorns past KSU 4-1 in last Sunday's game to sweep the series with a career-high eight strikeouts. The Missouri resident also had a key hold in the 10th inning of UT's eventual 10-6 victory over the Wildcats on Apr. 9 by retiring two hitters with the bases loaded on 10 pitches. He lowered his Texas-starters-best ERA to 1.78 with the 9 2/3 innings without an earned run while raising his record to 6-0. LeCure walked just three hitters and held K-State to a .114 batting average.
Jackson tossed a two-hit shutout at Kansas to clinch a road series for the Aggies in 4-0 fashion. He struck out nine, did not walk a batter and retired the last 19 batters he faced. Needing just 106 pitches in the shutout, he had his best showing since a 15-0 no-hitter against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi in his Aggies' debut on Feb. 14, 2004. The junior lefty started 23 of the 29 batters he opposed with a strike and raised his individual strikeouts' total to 62 over 58 2/3 innings pitcher-better than one per frame.