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Rice Baseball: Owls’ unraveled by errors in loss to Louisiana

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Fresh off their first series win of the season, Rice baseball dropped its midweek contest to Louisiana that was close through four innings.

Trei Cruz and Austin Bulman opened up the game with back-to-back doubles in the first inning, tying the score at one apiece after starter Ryan Rickett allowed a run in the first inning. That would become the extent of the Owls’ offensive production on the night.

Rice would manage to pull together five hits, paling in comparison to the 13 hits Louisiana accrued in their 10-run win. A game this lopsided has become all-too common this season, but it was the first time an opponent tallied 10 runs at Reckling Park this year.

Here are three takeaways from the game.

Foreboding first innings

Rice has allowed at least one run in the first inning in seven of their 11 games this season. Their opponents are sending their best bats to the plate in the first inning. But that’s no reason for the Owls’ starting pitching to be this porous so early in games. Like Rickett tonight, who settled in for his short start after the one-run first inning, Rice starting pitching has been mostly adequate. If they can cruise through the second and third inning, getting three outs to start the game shouldn’t be too much to ask.

Owls can’t afford to be this sloppy

By the time the conference tournament came around, Rice baseball had become one of the better fielding teams in Conference USA. That level of play had held steady since. Entering Tuesday night, Rice had committed one error or less in eight of their 10 games. A pair two-error games were the exceptions.

Rice committed four errors against Louisiana, three of which came in the fifth inning. Three reliable infielders — Cruz, Bulman and Cade Edwards — all allowed free bases to the Cajuns who made the Owls pay. The seven-run fifth inning crushed what had been a promising start.

No rest for the weary

The schedule doesn’t ease up. Rice gets crosstown rival Houston on Wednesday night. Following that they draw Texas Tech for a three-game series on the road and return home for a midweek game against Texas A&M before starting conference play against Marshall.

The road looked tenuous before the Owls’ started playing games. The early results have been hard to process. How much of blame does Rice deserve? How much credit is due to the quality of the competition? As usual, the answer is probably a little bit of both.

Up Next | Houston (Wed), Texas Tech (Fri-Sun)

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Rice Football Recruiting: An offer from the Owls means more

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The 2020 Rice Football recruiting class was a highly-rated, hand-picked collection of players. The numbers reflect the Owls’ effectiveness.

The world of college football recruiting is swathed in layers upon layers of grey. Who gets offered by whom makes local and sometimes even national news. Meanwhile, whether or not that offer is “committable” or not is largely kept hidden in the shadows.

The 2020 Rice football recruiting class provided a decidedly unique level of clarity. The Owls distanced themselves from their peers in the effectiveness and efficiency of their recruiting offers. Based on data released from Hero Sports, Rice offered the fewest players in the 2020 recruiting cycle among all Conference USA teams. See the graph below.

 

The Owls’ 70 offers were only the fewest in Conference USA. Rice tied Northwestern as the choosiest FBS programs in the nation. Stanford (74) and Washington (79) were the only other programs that offered less than 100 players.

Keep in mind, classes are capped at roughly 25 players each season and FBS rosters are limited to 85 scholarship players. Offering 98 defensive linemen — something Southern Miss decided to do in the 2020 class — goes well beyond both the 25-man and the 85-man thresholds.

On a per offer basis, no school in the Group of 5 was as effective as Rice. The Owls turned 27.1 percent of their offers into commitments. See the graph below.

A little more than one out of every four offered players became a signee in the 2020 Rice Football recruiting class. That’s more than double the Conference USA average 13.4 percent. It’s also significantly better than the national average, which hovers around 11 percent.

There are no trophies handed out for recruiting efficiency. But the line of sight offered by an offer from Rice football is second to none. The Owls do their homework before they extend an offer. If you get an offer from Rice, it’s rock solid.

** Data sourced from Hero Sports
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Rice Baseball 2020: Owls notch series win over Missouri State

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It took a few games to get in a groove, but Rice baseball found their rhythm in a 2-1 series win over Missouri State over the weekend.

THREE FOR THE ROAD | Rice wins the series 2-1

1. The bats are here!

Rice scored as many runs in the first inning of their Friday game than they managed in their previous four games combined. That’s seven runs prior to getting three outs compared to seven runs after 36 outs. It wasn’t a completely clean flip of the switch. The offense didn’t do much on Saturday and still could have been better than the five runs scored on Sunday.

Big weekends from Austin Bulman, Bradley Gneiting, Rodrigo Duluc, Trei Cruz and others have given the Owls a semblance of a starting lineup. There’s still a bit more work to be done organizing the outfield, but the offense has cleared the first hurdle. This was a positive step after two successive backward weekends.

2. DeLeon shows he can do it — but consistency still a problem

DeLeon’s seven innings of five-hit, four-run ball don’t qualify as a quality start, nor should they after the rocky start. Still, the way the veteran was able to settle in and battle for as long as he did showed a tremendous amount of poise and control. Getting comfortable after a first-inning as poor as he had and going deep into the game says a lot about his staying power within the Rice rotation.

The stat sheet still shows a grisly 9.82 ERA next to his name. For him, though, the bad has come in bunches. His ERA would drop significantly if not for the few awful innings he’s been a part of for one reason or another. You can’t cherry pick stats to fit a narrative, but any good story need context. DeLeon has been about as good as his high ERA says. That said, there’s clearly room for improvement if he can eliminate his early game struggles.

3. The sky is not falling

Things were grim after the 0-7 start. 2-8 doesn’t look much better on the official tally, but it will feel a lot different between the ears of this Rice baseball team. The psychological impact of a series win outways whatever good this series will have in the final standings. Missouri State hasn’t proven themselves to be all that great of a baseball team this season. Unless Rice plays themselves into a position for an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament, this weekend won’t drastically impact their season. Still, it mattered to this team. It mattered a lot.

On some level, Rice just needed to remember how to win. Batting around on Friday night, responding to a “here-we-go-again” scare with the most impressive offensive outburst of the season shows what this team can be. Consistency will be the key. And they’ll have to figure that out on the fly too.

FRIDAY | Rice 12 – Missouri State 4

Things started out rocky for the Owls on Friday night. Missouri State stuck with a four-spot in the first inning off pitcher Alex DeLeon. The embattled starter did not face a deficit for long. His offense woke up, batting around in the bottom half of the inning. By the time he returned to the mound, Rice had staked themselves to a 7-4 lead.

A home run by Trei Cruz and triples by Rodrigo Duluc and Bradley Gneiting highlighted a night in which the Owls had more extra-base hits than Missouri State totalled base hits of any kind.

SATURDAY | Missouri State 9 – Rice 3

Missouri State took an early lead, but Rice kept things close in the middle game up until the seventh inning. An error allowed the leadoff man to reach, setting the stage for four un-earned runs to extend the visitor’s lead from 4-0 to 7-0. Rice would tack on a few runs at the end, but it was never enough to make it feel like the Owls were close to making this a game again after that.

SUNDAY | Rice 5 – Missouri State 1

Rice fell behing in the first inning during Sunday’s rubber match. Seeking their first series win of the season, the Owls dug deep, scratching across runs in the third, fourth, fifth and seventh innings to take and extend the lead. Rice only out-hit Missouri State nine to seven, but the Owls got the more timely hits — something that had eluded them in recent weeks.

ON DECK | at Texas State (Tues), vs Missouri State (Fri-Sun)

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The Roost Podcast | Ep. 24 – Evan Kravetz and Clifton Douglass

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Former Rice baseball pitcher Evan Kravetz and Conference USA Assitant Commissioner Clifton Douglass join us on the Roost Podcast this week.

There’s a lot going on in Conference USA. Baseball season is in its early days as the basketball seasons begin to wind down toward the conference tournament. In the midst of everything going on, we had the chance to sit down and chat with some folks plugged into both Conference USA and Rice baseball.

Former Owls’ pitcher Evan Kravetz joined us to talk about Rice on the diamond. Current Conference USA Assitant Commissioner Clifton Douglass came on the show to talk about the basketball season and more.

You can always find previous episodes on the podcast page. For now, Give a listen to Episode 24.

Episode 24 Notes

  • Housekeeping — Get notifications when new shows are posted and other updates by turning on push notifications when you follow The Roost Podcast on Twitter.
  • Evan Kravetz — Making his first appearance on the show, Kravetz caught Rice fans up on what his last year has been like since he was selected by the Cincinnati Reds in the MLB Draft. He told us all about minor league life, his perfect 0.00 ERA from his debut season in pro ball. Then he gave a few names to watch on the current Rice baseball roster.
  • Clifton Douglass —  Another first time guest, Douglass walked through the decision making process that led Conference USA to institute bonus play. Does he think it has had the intended results? We also hit on the conference tournament at The Star in Frisco and the success on the court by Rice women’s basketball, the North Texas men and more.

Where can you find us?

Download and subscribe to The Roost Podcast on any of your favorite podcast providers. The show is available on iTunes, GooglePlay, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn and PodBean. Please consider leaving a review wherever you listen.

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Rice Football 2020: Spring Practice Day 1 Notes

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The first day of Rice football spring practice is in the books. It’s too early to draw any definitive conclusions, but the groundwork is being laid for the fall.

A full complement of players took the field on Monday for the first day of Rice football spring practice. The complete roster lists 79 players, more than enough to field two full units on both sides of the ball. Some positions will be deeper than others, but the Owls have reached enough bodies to make significant strides this spring.

Head coach Mike Bloomgren likes where the team is at entering the spring, particularly on defense. “I love where our defense is…” he said. “I love that coach [Brian] Smith has them in the mindset that nothing they did last year is going to make a single play for them this year. Everything’s got to be earned again. I can’t wait to see what they can build over there on that side [of the ball]”.

Bloomgren did make sure to mention that the Owls return 20 of 22 players on the defensive two-deep depth chart. That’s the best in the nation in terms of returning defensive production.

Quarterbacks

In a somewhat surprising move, there were no “OR” designations on the first Rice football depth chart of the spring. The quarterbacks, listed from top to bottom:

  1. JoVoni Johnson
  2. Mike Collins
  3. TJ McMahon
  4. Wiley Green
  5. Evan Marshman
  6. Parker Towns

A true No. 1 is far from being finalized, but the decision to put Johnson atop the pack was intentional. “He gained a lot of our trust,” Bloomgren said. “He earned the right, in my opinion, and coach [Jerry] Mack’s opinion, to be on top. So he’s taking those [first team] reps.”

After Johnson, Collins and McMahon have clearly separated themselves from the rest of the group. It would be surprising if one of those three isn’t named the opening day starter for the Owls in the fall. The value of having Mack in the quarterback room as well as having all three starting options on campus for the full duration of spring cannot be understated.

Offensive line

Bloomgren spent the majority of the first practice in the trenches with the offensive line. Injecting his extensive experience into that group will be crucial as the Owls look to reconfigure their front five on the fly.

Rice loses Brian Chaffin, Justin Gooseberry and Nick Leverett. The first reps of spring ball featured this revamped first team line:

LT – Clay Servin
LG – Adam Sheriff
C – Isaac Klarkowski
RG – Shea Baker
RT – Jovaun Woolford

Baker at the guard position probably says more about the uncertainty at that spot than it does about the center position. Klarkowski’s work last season in emergency duty had staying power. “I don’t know if we think of him as a walk-on anymore,” admitted Bloomgren, who showed no qualms about him starting the spring with the first team.

Rice has two full lines this spring as opposed to six or seven healthy bodies at the position at this time last year. The tackle spots seem more or less locked down, but the remaining options on the interior could position themselves for a bigger role in the fall with a good showing over the next few weeks.

Injuries

It seems like having 100 percent of the roster fully healthy at the same time is all but impossible. The Owls are relatively healthy, but these four players are expected to miss all of spring ball.

  • Robbie Blosser
  • Jake Bailey
  • Bennett Mecom
  • Trey Schuman

The absence of Jake Bailey is probably the most notable. Trey Schuman is in line to regain his starting role in the fall. He’s somewhat of a more known quantity. Bailey’s absence from the spring will make things a bit more complicated in a wide receiver room that’s starting to get a little more crowded.

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