Rice Baseball struck early and executed down the stretch to take down a 34-win Lamar squad on the road.
Rice baseball continued its recent them of strong starts, jumping on top of the hosting Lamar Cardinals with a 4-run second inning on Wednesday night. Kyle McDonald got the first run across in his return to the lineup after battling injuries, scoring Jack Riedel on a sacrifice fly. Tobias Motley and Jacob Devenny added RBI hits of their own in the inning. Pierce Gallo tacked on one more run in the third.
Staked to a 5-0 lead, Rice pitching was tasked with fulfilling their end of the bargain. Karl Ralamb drew the start, but quickly ceded the mound to Mauricio Rodriguez in what would become a true bullpen game. No Rice pitcher worked more than 1.2 innings.
Rodriguez, Jackson Mayo and Mark Perkins were each charged with two runs apiece, but by the time Perkins was charged with his second run and Reed Gallant had entered the game, the Owls had built enough of a cushion to weather a few missteps from the back end of the bullpen.
Last Time Out: Rice Baseball tops AAC-leading UTSA in best of three
Leading 8-6 after six innings, head coach Jose Cruz Jr. turned the ball over to his most trusted options. Jackson Blank, Tom Vincent and Davion Hickson finished the game, allowing no more runs and securing the win.
What it means | Just keep winning
Lamar is a good baseball team and, by record, a better baseball team than Rice baseball has proven itself to be to this point, at least on paper. But Rice hasn’t been playing like the team that got off to such a slow start, quite the contrary. This version of the Owls looks as good as it has ever looked under Cruz. Winning games like this further solidifies that notion.
Rice has won nine of their last 11 including back-to-back midweek contests against Lamar and Texas A&M Corpus Christi. They’ve got a tough road ahead of them, including a rematch with Lamar next week and a trip to play at No. 1 Texas A&M. But the more wins they can stack along the way, the better.
ON DECK | at Charlotte (Fri-Sun)
