Rice baseball picked up its first AAC win of the season but dropped the series on the road to Florida Atlantic in the first games under new head coach David Pierce.
FRIDAY | FAU 9, Rice 3
A solo home run from Blaine Brown got Rice baseball on the board first, turning the ball over to starter Davion Hickson, who was coming off two weeks of rest. Hickson put together one of his better outings of the season, but still got himself on the hook for four runs (three earned) across 5.1 innings pitched.
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He left trailing 3-1 and watched from the dugout as his relief, Marco Fuentes, gave up a two-run home run to put Rice in an even further hole. FAU would tack on another run in the seventh and three more in the eight to run away with the opening game by the final score of 9-3.
SATURDAY | Rice 3, FAU 1
Florida Atlantic struck first in the second game, going ahead of the visiting Owls 1-0 on an RBI single in the second inning against Rice starter JD McCracken. That would prove to be one the only productive innings FAU would have against McCracken, who tossed six innings of one-run ball, limiting FAU to just five hits while striking out three.
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While McCracken did his work on the mound, Rice made the most of some opportunistic hitting, scoring a pair of runs on a two-out single from Hiram Bocachica in the fifth before Bocachica added an insurance run in the seventh, driving in one more run to account for all three of the Owls’ RBI on the afternoon. That would prove to be enough for Rice to notch their first win under new head coach David Pierce.
SUNDAY | FAU 6, Rice 4
Rice struck first in the rubber game, taking a 1-0 lead on an RBI single from Tobias Motley in the fourth inning. FAU would even the score in the bottom of the inning, picking up a run against Tucker Alch, who would only be charged for two runs through five innings of work that afternoon.
FAU went in front momentarily in the sixth on an RBI double down the left field line but Trey Duffield answered with a massive one-out 2 RBI single to catapult Rice back in front in the top of the seventh inning. The back-and-forth would not stop there, though, FAU launched a three-run bomb to retake the lead, 6-3.
Rice would get the trying run to the plate in the ninth, but only managed to get one run across, dropping the game and the series.
THREE FOR THE ROAD
