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Rice Baseball drops Tulane series but notches first-ever AAC win

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Although they dropped the series to Tulane two games to one, Rice baseball was able to salvage the finale and earn its first-ever AAC win.

FRIDAY | Tulane 14 – Rice 7 (11 innings)

Treyton Rank got Rice baseball off to the right foot on Friday night. His first big hit came in the third inning, a double to left center which put the Owls in front 2-0. Just two innings later, a triple gave the home team a 4-0 advantage. A big lead with Parker Smith on the mound had Rice feeling good, but trouble loomed as soon as Smith left the game.

Last Time Out: Rice Baseball drops Silver Glove Series to Houston

Tulane forced Smith to exit in the sixth, scoring two runs credited to his ledger in the frame. The Green Wave tied it up in the seventh then took a 6-4 lead in the eighth. Jacob Devenny leveled the score with a clutch, two-out single in the eighth. The score stayed there for a while until the 11th inning. Garrett Stratton lost command and loaded the bases before ceding the mound to Jack Ben-Shoshan, who was battered and left with a large deficit and no outs recorded.

SATURDAY | Tulane 10 – Rice 1

JD McCracken labored through 5.2 innings on Saturday, working through base runners to give Rice a chance, allowing just three runs (all unearned) on six hits and four walks. The offense gave him one run of support while he was on the mound, a solo home run in the fifth from Jack Riedel.

McCracken gave way to Mauricio Rodriguez who got out of the sixth inning without further damage then allowed one run in the seventh before things went south in the eighth. Tulane struck for five in the inning, expanding their lead to 9-1 against the Owls who didn’t manage any additional runs for the afternoon, falling 10-1.

SUNDAY | Rice 4 – Tulane 2

Little by little, Rice built a lead in the series finale. An RBI groundout from Nathan Becker put Rice in front in the first, then a fielder’s choice and a single from Kyte McDonald added two more to the Owls’ total in second inning before Becker pushed the Rice lead to 4-0 with a single in the fifth.

As the bats methodically tacked on runs, the pitching trio of Tucker Alch, Ryland Urbanczyk and Tyler Hamilton were able to limit the Tulane bats, which had vexed the Owls’ relievers throughout much of the weekend. Hickson entered in the ninth inning to slam the door, notching the first-ever American Conference win for Rice baseball.

THREE FOR THE ROAD

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1. Fridays have to be for the Owls

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ON DECK | at Sam Houston (Tues), at Wichita State (Thr-Sat)

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Rice Women’s Basketball falls short at LSU in NCAA Tournament

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Rice Women’s Basketball pushed LSU to the wire, dropping a hard-fought game to the defending champs in the First Round of the NCAA Tournament.

A sea of frustrated purple and gold clan onlookers bemoaned a season-low first quarter point total for the defending national champion LSU Tigers following a physical battle with Rice Women’s basketball in the opening stanza of their NCAA Tournament game. The Owls held the Tigers to 12 points, and while they only managed six themselves, it was evident from the start they were going to give LSU all they had.

“Once we got over that first punch that they threw, we absolutely hung with them,” Malia Fisher said. “I think it was just about playing our brand of basketball and hitting shots early to spread their defense out and then being aggressive, and like I said, not being scared and taking it to them.”

Even when LSU went on a 10-2 run, Rice never looked rattled. The Owls weathered the storm, staying vigilant on defense and got key shots in key moments, many of them coming from the long range of Emily Klaczek whose final three of the first half silenced a full house at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center in Baton Rogue.

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Despite being heavy underdogs, Rice never looked rattled. In the waning moments of the third quarter an 11-2 run put LSU up by 11, their largest lead of the game. Malia Fisher spent most of that time on the bench, struggling with foul trouble, yet the Owls battled back with Destiny Jackson leading the charge and Hailey Adams knocking down some big free throws along the way.

“I can’t hear myself think,” Fisher joked afterward, noting how the environment wasn’t too much for this team. Even with the noise, Rice pushed back.

That 11-point deficit dwindled as the fourth quarter progressed. Sussy Ngulefac’s layup with 1:56 got Rice within six points. The Owls wouldn’t get any closer than that, watching the clock wind down after a hard-fought battle against a battled-tested LSU team.

Final Box | LSU 70 – Rice 60

What They’re Saying

“I’m incredibly proud to be their coach. We came in here and we wanted to have the exact same mindset that we had in the conference tournament and that was to come in and play our best brand of basketball and to not quit and to not give up and be relentless… I’m incredibly proud. We came in here. We fought for four quarters. We won two of those quarters against the defending national champion. I thought we did a lot of great things, but the main thing that I’m proud of is that we never for one second quit or looked like we didn’t believe that we belonged in this game. Very, very proud. I don’t know if I can say that enough.”” – Head coach Lindsay Edmonds

Key takeaway | Poise under pressure

Strip away the seeds and the fanfare. If you handed a copy of this game to someone who didn’t know LSU was the defending national champions and Rice women’s basketball had only earned their ticket to play in the dance a week ago, Friday’s result wouldn’t have given many clues.

LSU turned the ball over 24 times. They shot 42 percent from the field and never led by more than 11 points, despite being nearly a 30-point favorite by most oddsmakers.

Rice won on the margins. They got to loose balls and never let effort be the differentiator between success and failure. For 40 minutes, it looked like the Owls wanted it more than the Tigers. In the end, LSU’s edge in athleticism and height — they outrebounded Rice 42-29 — proved decisive. But not once did it ever seem as if the Owls would go down without a fight.

“We were not afraid of the moment and we were ready to play. We proved that we were here and we were not going to just be somebody that they were going to be able to run over or walk all over,” head coach Lindsay Edmonds said. “And that was because of their unwavering belief in one another and their unwavering confidence in our gameplan and what we were trying to get accomplished today.”

The 2023-2024 Rice women’s basketball season comes to an end in Baton Rouge, but the showing was about as impressive as it could have been in a loss. The unflappable Owls will be back. They’re already charting a course for another trip to the dance next year.

“We talked about it in the locker room. Remember this feeling. Remember what it felt like to get here but next year we want to go further,” Edmonds said. “Everything matters. We’ve already started talking about that. And I think everybody’s going to be hungry.”

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Houston claims Silver Glove Series with pair of wins over Rice Baseball

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Rice baseball dropped the first two games of the Silver Glove series this week, narrowly being outscored by Houston by a combined score of 8-3.

TUESDAY | Houston 4 – Rice 1

Houston had one strong inning with the bat on Tuesday, but they made the production count. The Cougars struck for three runs in the second inning off Rice starter Robert Fernandez, who pitched relatively well, all things considered, going five innings and allowing three runs, the final two of which came across on a bases-clearing triple in that fateful second frame.

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Trailing 3-0, Rice would manufacture one run in the eight. Kyte McDonald walked and stole second, moving into scoring position for Treyton Rank who drove him in with a single. Houston tacked on an insurance run in the eighth and that would be that.

WEDNESDAY | Houston 4 – Rice 2

A true bullpen game featuring 15 pitchers saw consistent traffic on the base paths for both teams. But despite the accumulation of pitches, hits and free passes, runs trickled in here and there, rather than flowing in droves.

Houston got on the board first with a solo home run in the third. Rice tied things in the fifth on a sac fly from Manny Garza that felt a few feet short of a game-changing grand slam. Instead, the game was back to even for a few more innings until Houston scratched across three more to take a 4-1 lead midway through the eighth. The Cougars would hold on to claim the series, which concludes next week.

THREE FOR THE ROAD

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1. Not so fast

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ON DECK | vs Tulane (Fri-Sun)

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Rice Football 2024 Spring Practice Notebook 2: From the Trenches

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Spring is meant to be a time for improvement and learning. That’s been the theme from Rice football on the practice field this week.

Rice football returned from spring break and got back on the practice field this week. There were standouts at all levels, but the trenches stuck out the most. The offensive line has wowed early, even as they rotate through several faces. Meanwhile, on defense, the up-and-coming youngsters are working to make a name for themselves alongside some veteran pieces.

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Growth, competition and good news up front

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14-Seed Rice Women’s Basketball to face LSU in 2024 NCAA Tournament

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Rice Women’s Basketball has earned a 14-Seed in the 2024 NCAA Tournament and will open up against 3-Seed LSU in Baton Rouge.

For the first time since 2019, Rice Women’s Basketball is going dancing. The Owls clinched an automatic berth in the 2024 NCAA Tournament when they cut down the nets this week in Forth Worth, TX, winning the American Conference Championship. They found out their postseason destination on Selection Sunday:

Rice will be the No. 14 Seed in the Albany 2 Region where they’ll face 3-Seed LSU in the first round. Should the Owls pull off the upset and advance beyond that, they’ll play the winner of 6-Seed Louisville and 11-Seed MTSU.

Rice and LSU will tip off Friday at 3:00 pm. The game will be televised on ESPN

This is the Owls’ fourth trip to the NCAA Tournament in program history and head coach Lindsay Edmonds has become the only Rice women’s basketball head coach to reach the tournament in their first three seasons with the school.

The Owls’ first appearance as a program came in 2000 when the 13-Seed Owls upset 4-Seed UC Santa Barbara in the first round. They then advanced to the second round and fell to 5-Seed North Carolina. Their second trip came in 2005 as an 11-Seed where they fell to 6-Seed Georgia in the first round.

Erica Ogwumike and Nancy Mulkey headlined the most recent Rice Women’s Basketball team to go dancing. That squad was a 12-Seed, pitted against 5-Seed Marquette in the first round. That team dropped a close overtime contest and was denied another chance at the tournament when the 2020 postseason was canceled with the outbreak of COVID-19.

The complete bracket is available here.

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