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Rice Baseball 2021: Previewing the UAB series

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Rice baseball hits the road for their final Conference USA series away from home this coming weekend where they’ll take on the UAB Blazers.

Must-win territory has arrived for Rice baseball. The Owls have completed six Conference USA series so far and have yet to record any series wins. They have a split with UTSA under their belts and single ranked wins over Old Dominion and Southern Miss. But the win total still needs to come up by a good margin in the final two weekends.

Rice has a better total record than UAB. This would be a good weekend to keep that distinction in place, and hopefully, to grow the gap.

Times: Friday 6:00 p.m. | Saturday 1:00 p.m. / ~4:00 p.m. | Sunday 12:30 p.m.
Venue: Young Memorial Field
Radio: Stretch Internet Portal
Watch: CUSAtv

How each team fared this week

Rice baseball (18-26-1) dropped a weekend series against Southern Miss at Reckling Park. The Owls blanked the Golden Eagles 6-0 in the opener but could not keep their ranked foes at bay for the final three games.

UAB (15-30) split a four-game series with UTSA last weekend, mirroring an outcome Rice had earlier in the season. Like Rice, UAB has yet to win a conference series outright.

Probable Pitchers

Friday | Mitchell Holcomb (5-4, 6.71)
Saturday 1 | Roel Garcia (1-4, 5.76 ERA)
Saturday 2 | Blake Brogdon (2-5, 5.95)
Sunday | Brandon Deskins (2-4, 3.92)

UAB Pitching

Riley Davis is the man to watch on the mound for UAB. He’s seventh in Conference USA in ERA (2.95) and is tied for first in the league with three complete games. Collin Taylor will be the first man out of the bullpen, second on the team in appearances and second in ERA (3.38). Brady Greene is another effective bullpen piece the Owls might see more than once.

UAB Hitting

The Blazers ranked dead last in conference play with a .231 batting average. They don’t score a lot of runs, don’t hit for power and don’t get on base well. Chandler Simpson (.317/.359/.366)has been the most consistent producer in the lineup, followed by Colton Schultz (.289/.381/388) and Zack Davis (.288/.331/.451) but after that, things drop off precipitously.

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Rice Soccer: Owls fall to Virginia in Sweet 16

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Rice soccer fell to No. 13 Virginia on Wednesday night, ending their postseason run in the Sweet 16.

A remarkable NCAA Tournament run came to an end for Rice soccer late on Wednesday night. A weather delay in a previous game pushed back what would become the Owls’ final game of their season, a 2-0 loss to No. 13 Virginia in the Sweet 16.

Rice was on the defensive from the start against Virginia, holding the Cavaliers scoreless through the first 35 minutes of play before Diana Ordonez broke through with a penalty kick in the 36th minute. She would add a second goal in the 67th minute and a third in the 81st minute, completing a hat trick with minutes to spare in regulation.

Virginia led Rice in shots 16-2, shots on goal 6-1 and corners 8-0. Most importantly, they edged Rice in scoring 3-0. For as strong as the Rice back line had been all season, it wasn’t able to outlast the onslaught from their ACC foes this time around. Virginia became the fifth ACC squad to clinch a spot in the quarterfinals with the victory.

The Roost Podcast: Rice Football and C-USA Offseason Mailbag

The end of the season is bittersweet, but the heights this program was able to reach still deserve recognition. Rice became the first Conference USA program to reach the Sweet 16 since 2011 when UCF took down North Carolina, advancing to the quarter finals.

Rice soccer will finish its 2021 season with a final record of 14-3-1, tying a school record for wins set in 2004 (and matched in 2014). Their streak of 11 consecutive matches without a loss (10-0-1) also came to an end.

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Rice Tennis: Owls send women’s team, men’s doubles to NCAAs

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Rice Tennis will be well represented in the NCAAs. The women’s team and the men’s doubles are headed to their respective postseason tournaments.

It’s been a busy spring at South Main as several different sports make started, finished or are just beginning their own postseason runs. Women’s basketball won the WNIT and introduced their next head coach a few weeks later. Soccer has advanced to the Sweet 16 and hopes to go further on Wednesday night. Next up, Rice Tennis is one of the final teams to advance to the NCAAs with both the women and men seeing some form of representation.

Rice Women’s Tennis Team

After falling to FIU in the Conference USA Tournament semifinal, the Owls earned an at-large berth to the NCAA Tournament where they’ll face Michigan on Friday at 10 a.m. Should they advance past Wolverines, they’ll face the winner of the matchup between Boston and No. 12 LSU. The Tigers beat Owls in Baton Rouge earlier this season.

The matches will be available for streaming on LSU Sports net.

Rice Men’s Doubles

Although the team did no qualify, the duo of Conrad Russell and Sumit Sarkar did clinch an automatic berth in the NCAA Men’s Doubles Championship. That event will be played following the conclusion of the team championship.

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Rice Football Recruiting: 2022 class flyover entering the summer

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The 2022 Rice Football recruiting class is approaching May with one commitment secured. Here’s the 10,000-foot view of the class so far.

The summer is near and the 2022 Rice football recruiting class is progressing, mostly behind the scenes. Rice has one commitment so far and only a handful of offers. Here’s a quick update on what the Owls have been up to over the last few weeks and the outlook for what their plans could be as the summer nears.

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Rice Baseball 2021: Southern Miss decisively soars past Owls

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Rice baseball stole an opening win, but couldn’t sustain the momentum, dropping a home series to a ranked Southern Miss team over the weekend.

THREE FOR THE ROAD | Rice baseball loses series 3-1

1. Nine runs are not enough

The six-run opener was a positive start for the week, but it in itself was only a hair better than the conference average. C-USA schools average 5.93 runs per game. At the conclusion of this weekend’s games, Rice baseball averages 5.07 runs per game. Had Rice won 2-0 instead of 6-0 on Friday, that number would have fallen below five runs per game.

The best offenses in Conference USA score eight runs an outing. Only three average worse than five runs, but only one, Marshall, is below Rice in the overall standings. The bats aren’t doing enough, and the pitching staff isn’t strong enough to bail them out more often than a night or two on any given weekend.

2. There’s no one else to call upon

Micah Davis has served as an “opener” in three consecutive series. He’s walked multiple batters twice and allowed at least one run twice. Prior to those outings, he’s had a couple of strong relief appearances, but it hasn’t worked out well so far with him as the first man on the bump.

But it would be a mistake to put the weight of the Owls’ pitching struggles on his shoulders. He’s there because of failures among other members of the rotation. Will West made his first appearance of the season in the Friday night rout. That came after more familiar faces like Alex DeLeon and Drake Greenwood had allowed things to get out of hand.

The pitching staff many had hoped would be deep enough to weather long weeks in Conference USA play hasn’t lived up to those expectations. Outside of Brandon Deskins, Blake Brogdon and a few others, it’s become a dicey proposition.

3. It’s now or never for any sort of postseason

The top three teams in each division clinch a spot in the conference tournament with two additional spots given out to the best remaining teams by winning percentage. Sitting at six wins, Rice is four games behind Middle Tennessee for the eighth spot in the tournament. That’s a ton of room to make up in two weeks.

Rice draws UAB next. The Blazers are just above the Owls in the West standings. Should Rice win the series (or even sweep), they’d have something to play for on the final weekend of the regular season against Charlotte. Middle Tennessee, who Rice is chasing, visit Southern Miss the weekend before closing at home against FIU. It’s a tall order, but if Rice can win this weekend series, there’s a chance.

THE PLAY BY PLAY

FRIDAY  1 | Rice – Southern Miss

Things couldn’t have gotten off to a much better start for Rice in the first half of the weather-induced Friday doubleheader. The Owls struck first, taking the lead in the first inning on an RBI single from Bradley Gneiting and extending it with an RBI single from Will Karp shortly after.

Up 2-0, Mitchell Holcomb cruised through four innings. With two men on in the fifth, Deskins entered and induced a pop-up to end the threat. A three-run fifth inning and an insurance run courtesy of a Cade Edwards sixth-inning triple helped Rice close out the opener with relative ease.

FRIDAY 2 | Southern Miss 12 – Rice 1

After being silenced in the first game, the Southern Miss bats woke up in a hurry for the Friday nightcap. The Golden Eagles scored two in the first inning, four in the second and two more in the third. The Rice pitching trio of Davis, DeLeon and Greenwood had no answers, and before Greenwood was replaced to start the fourth inning, Rice was already in an insurmountable hole.

Rice would out-hit Southern Miss 10-0, only failing to reach base in one of the seven innings. It wouldn’t matter as the Owls hit safely in 2-of-10 situations with runners in scoring position.  Guy Garibay drove in the only Rice run.

SATURDAY | Southern Miss 10 – Rice 1

Roel Garcia battled through five innings on Saturday, allowing five runs on seven hits. Southern Miss just kept putting the ball in play whereas the Rice bats did not hold up their side of the bargain. While Garcia labored, the Rice offense was silent, collecting just two hits while he was on the mound.

Trailing 5-0 at the time of Garcia’s exit, the bullpen quickly allowed the lead to double over the next three innings in what felt like a carbon copy of the previous evening’s blowout loss.

SUNDAY | Southern Miss 8 – Rice 1

Garibay drew the start on Sunday and after sending the first three Golden Eagles down in the first inning, ran into trouble in the second. Southern Miss struck for four runs in the frame, adding two more in the third and forcing Garibay to exit in favor of Brogdon, who navigated 4.2 innings reasonably well, striking out five and allowing two runs.

A leadoff home run from Austin Bulman in the second was all the offense could muster. Their six hits were the fewest in any game of the series.

ON DECK | Rice baseball vs UAB (Fri-Sun, four games).

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