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Rice Baseball swept by Stanford

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Rice baseball left Reckling Park without a win this weekend, falling in three straight games to Stanford.

FRIDAY | Stanford 6 – Rice 2

The home crowd exploded with cheers when Jack Riedel launched a seventh-inning pitch over the left field berm for a no-doubt, leadoff home run. While the blast was impressive, it also represented the Owls’ first hit of the night in a game they trailed 5-0 before that ball crossed over the fence.

Last Time Out: Rice Baseball drops midweek bout with LSU

Stanford starting pitcher Matt Scott had allowed just two base runners to that point, both on walks. Smith outdueled Rice ace Parker Smith who had labored through six innings, earning the loss. A late-inning rally would prove too little, too late.

SATURDAY | Stanford 8 – Rice 2

Following a spectacular complete game the weekend prior, Rice pitcher JD McCracken was not as fortunate this time out. He labored through 5.2 innings, leaving in a precarious spot in the sixth before two more runs were added to his ledger on a double surrendered by Jack Ben-Shoshan.

Trailing 8-0 with one hit of their own, Rice couldn’t mount a meaningful comeback. Jack Riedel gave the Owls their only offensive spark of the day, lifting a two-out home run over the wall to prevent a shutout. That salvaged some pride but had no impact on the Owls’ chances at a comeback.

SUNDAY | Stanford 4 – Rice 3

Although Stanford did strike first once again, things were much closer on Sunday in the series finale. After the Cardinal put up a two-spot in the first, Rice rallied to tie the game in the second inning. Treyton Rank delivered a key RBI double to even the score at 2-2.

The game would remain deadlocked there until the fifth inning when Stanford chased Rice start Ryland Urbanczyk from the game and moved ahead on a two-run homer off his successor, Tom Vincent. Rice got one back in the bottom half of the inning but wouldn’t score again.

Rice had a chance to break through in the eighth but stranded the bases loaded. Davion Hickson was a bright spot in the late innings, striking out five in 3.1 scoreless.

THREE FOR THE ROAD

Rice baseball wrapped up a rough week on the diamond with a weekend sweep at the hands of Stanford. Here are three takeaways from the series:

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ON DECK | vs PVAMU (Tues), at Hawaii (Fri-Mon)

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Rice Women’s Basketball runs out of gas vs North Texas

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Rice Women’s Basketball played North Texas tight for 38 minutes before the Owls shooting struggles finally came home to roost.

For 38 minutes, Rice women’s basketball and North Texas were locked in the makings of a class game between these two Texas-based powers. Through 38 minutes, neither team led by more than six points. There were 10 ties and seven lead changes. The back-and-forth was constant and neither team ever felt in control.

Malia Fisher and Emily Klaczek were productive from the field with Sussy Ngulefac coming off the bench with a team-high 13 points as well as four boards. Everything seemed to be going well for the home team until all of a sudden the shots stopped falling at the most inopportune time.

More: Roost Podcast — Spring Roundup

The Owls missed eight consecutive shots in the final 2:05 before a last-second layup that proved irrelevant to the final result. The run of misses inflated a woeful day from deep in which Rice converted a dismal 3-of-30 attempts from three-point range, further depressing a disappointing 31 percent shooting performance from the field.

Final Box | North Texas 63 – Rice 54

Key takeaway | Slipping away

There’s never a good time to lose four in a row, but the last weeks of the regular season are a particularly painful time to do so. Two weeks ago the double-bye in the conference tournament looked exceedingly likely. Today, not so much.

Rice is currently tied in the win column with Charlotte,  UAB, Memphis and UTSA. They don’t hold the tiebreaker with any of those four, with the Roadrunners still on the schedule in the final game of the regular season. That lack of a tiebreaker is what makes the double-bye seem so out of reach right now.

If Charlotte beats FAU on Sunday or ECU on Tuesday, they’ll be guaranteed the spot ahead of Rice in the standings. The same goes for UAB if they’re able to beat Wichita State on Tuesday.

The Owls’ only chance right now would require Charlotte to lose both games, UAB to lose to Wichita State, Memphis to lose to North Texas AND Rice to beat UTSA. If that exact scenario happened, Rice would finish 10-8, a game ahead of that entire grouping.

Up Next: at UTSA (Tuesday, Mar. 5)

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Rice Basketball can’t keep pace with red-hot Wichita State shooting

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Rice basketball traded blows early, but ran out of steam in the second half, falling on the road to Wichita State by a final score of 87-65.

Points were volleyed back and forth as Rice Basketball traded buckets with Wichita State in the early goings of their matchup on Saturday night. The first two field goals made, from each side, came from three, a harbinger of the fast-paced, high-scoring game which was about to unfold.

There were 10 ties and five lead changes through the first half. Travis Evee was productive, registering 11 points before the break. Max Fiedler tallied his 1,112th career rebound — the most in program history — as both sides shot better than 50 percent from the field and scored at will.

More: Roost Podcast — Spring Roundup

The second half was a different story. Wichita State opened the period on a 17-6 run, quickly turning a back-and-forth affair into a rout. “It went from three to 12 before we could blink,” head coach Scott Pera said of that pivotal second half run. “We needed someone to hit one.” That crucial basket didn’t come until the deficit had grown too large.

Rice would never get back within single digits from that point onward. Keanu Dawes, who had a team-high 12 points in the first half was held scoreless in the second half. As a team the Owls shot just 35 percent from the floor, unable to keep up with the Shockers’ torrid pace.

Final Box | Wichita State 87 – Rice 65

Key takeaway | Where’d the three go?

Rice basketball has built its offensive game plan around the three-point shot ever since Pera arrived on campus. They’ve generally had success doing things that way, at least when it has come to generating points on the offensive side. Against Wichita State, Rice made just six threes.

Travis Evee has been the go-to guy from deep for a while now. He was 3-of-8. But outside of his attempts, no other Rice players were a threat from long range. In fact, nobody else attempted more than three triples in the game.

A Rice offense without an effective threat from three is perplexing and perhaps it’s not surprising the team couldn’t keep pace with a productive offensive team on a night where the long ball was that fleeting.

The Owls don’t have time to lick their wounds and dwell on the failure, though. They have two games left to bust out of a tie with Wichita State in the conference standings and clinch a bye in the conference tournament.

“We’re going to battle and we’re going to prepare to win them both. It takes a team to stay together, through adversity, and not fracture,” Pera vowed after the game. “We’re going to keep working.”

Up Next: at Charlotte (Wednesday, Mar. 6)

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2024 Rice Football Schedule Announced

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The 2024 Rice Football schedule was released by the American Conference on Thursday, including a full 12-game slate.

Opponents have been known for some time, but now we have dates. All of a sudden the 2024 Rice football season is starting to take shape following an announcement by the conference office on Thursday that laid out the full slate of games the Owls will undertake this fall.

The AAC released this statement concurrently with the schedule:

The nonconference portion of the schedule features 10 games against teams ranked in the top 25 of the final Associated Press poll of 2023, including seven games against top-15 teams. American Athletic Conference teams will face No. 3 Texas, No. 5 Alabama, No. 6 Florida State, No. 14 Notre Dame (two games), No. 15 Oklahoma (two games), No. 16 Oklahoma State, No. 18 Kansas State and No. 25 Liberty in nonconference play.

Teams from The American will play 11 nonconference games against opponents from the Sun Belt, six against Conference USA, five against the SEC, four each against the Big 12 and Mountain West, three against the ACC and two against the Big Ten. American teams will additionally play six games against FBS independents, including two against Notre Dame.

So, here it is, the 2024 Rice Football schedule:

Date Opponent H/A
Aug. 31, 2024 Sam Houston Home
Sep. 7, 2024 Texas Southern Home
Sep. 14, 2024 Houston Away
Sep. 21, 2024 Army Away
Sep. 28, 2024 Charlotte Home
Oct. 5, 2024 — OFF — —
Oct. 12, 2024 UTSA Home
Oct. 19, 2024 Tulane Away
Oct. 26, 2024 UConn Away
Nov. 2, 2024 Navy Home
Nov. 8, 2024 Memphis (Fri) Away
Nov. 16, 2024 — OFF — —
Nov. 23, 2024 UAB Away
Nov. 30, 2024 USF Home

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Rice Baseball drops midweek bout to No. 3 LSU

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A rocky start was too much to overcome as Rice Baseball fell at home to defending champion LSU who scored early and often.

To beat championship-caliber teams you have to play championship-caliber ball. Wednesday night fully encapsulated the degree to which Rice baseball isn’t on the same level as the reigning national champions. And it all came to bear in the span of two half-innings that made all the difference.

Left field Brendan Cumming lost a ball in the lights in the second inning. A few at bats later, he came up inches short of a diving play in the outfield. Had both balls been caught, Rice very well could have been out of the inning with a zero on the board. Neither were. LSU got three.

Last Time Out: Pitching powers Rice Baseball to series win over Louisiana

An inning later, Rice got the first two outs. Instead of retiring the next batter though, reliever Jake Melvin hit him. The next man hit a home run. LSU proceeded to tack on four additional two-out runs. After coming so close to putting up back-to-back zeroes, Rice trailed LSU 9-0 through three innings.

Rice put together four runs of their own, but another large crooked number in the seventh — courtesy of another mammoth home run blast from LSU catcher Brady Neal, his second of the night — ended any illusions of a comeback. Rice fell 16-4.

What it means | Bright lights, strong winds, bad mix

The lights in the outfield were replaced the week before the season began. The new lights are bright. Someone on staff from a visiting team at Reckling Park this season mentioned they’d seen players struggle with similar lighting setups, particularly in the outfield. The first four games proceeded without notice. Then came Wednesday night.

What the scorebook shows is not fully indicative of what really happened in the field. Both left fielders misplaced balls in the air. Multiple balls dropped in between the triangle formed between the left fielder, third baseman and the shortstop. Officially these were ruled as hits because no fielder directly misplayed the baseball. But for those watching the game it was more than evident the field was playing tricks on everyone.

Rice baseball head coach Jose Cruz Jr. was more concerned with the wind that the lights.”I don’t think it was lights at all the lights were great. It’s it’s as bright as it’s ever been here at Rice,” he said. “But we were both playing on the same field.”

ON DECK | vs Stanford (Fri-Sun)

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