In the previous eight seasons under head coach Brad Hill, Kansas State’s most successful teams have had a strong element of senior leadership. Those seniors might not have always been all-conference players, but they took a step up, Hill said, in terms of production, whether it was at the plate or on the mound, that helped push the Wildcats to be successful.

Every day he comes to Rip Griffin Park, Texas Tech baseball coach Dan Spencer expects his team to be concerned about, and compete for, their starting jobs. He holds himself to the same standard. “You need do that and need to understand that it’s a business,” Spencer said in an interview as the team took this past weekend off for final exams. “We try to preach that to these guys, because this is part of their job, the other part going to school, and they’re being be evaluated every day. I don’t consider myself any different than that. I should be evaluated every day.”

DALLAS — Senior left-hander Ben Flora, used mostly as a situational reliever, tossed six shutout innings in his first start of the season, and Texas Tech took advantage of four Dallas Baptist errors to blank the Patriots, 5-0, in the Red Raiders’ final non-conference game of the season Tuesday at Patriot Field. Flora (1-0) came into the game having thrown just 92/3 innings all season with a 7.45 ERA, but lowered that mark to 4.60 after he held the Patriots (34-15) to just three hits and a walk with two strikeouts.