The source for Rice sports news

Rice Baseball squanders late lead, falling to ECU in AAC Tournament

By

Rice Baseball started strong before everything went wrong in a disastrous 12-run eighth inning that sent the Owls from an upset bid to an elimination game.

Days removed from a disastrous one-inning start, perhaps his worst of the season, Rice baseball hurler JD McCracken delivered an incredible bounce-back performance. On an afternoon when his team desperately needed him to deliver, the Owls’ typical Saturday starter tossed six shutout innings, allowing just two hits, neither of which left the infield.

“They didn’t really get a chance to see him last time we faced them,” head coach Jose Cruz Jr. said of McCracken’s big day. “He had some really good bullpens after that and we thought he was the best matchup for them and he proved us right. He pitched great, man. He was very competitive, tough, on a really good hitting team and he held them down pretty ferociously.”

Thanks to McCracken, through seven innings, everything was going right for the underdogs. A Rice team that was outscored 29-11 in three games this past weekend in Greenville, to that point, played strong defense, committed zero errors, and executed just well enough on offense to spot them a 4-0 lead midway through the eighth inning. That’s when disaster struck.

Kyte McDonald lost a ball in the sun which resulted in a leadoff triple. ECU loaded the bases and proceeded to take the lead on three consecutive bloop singles, which landed just past the heads of the Owls’ infielders. There was a botched double play ball. Nothing was hit hard off ace reliever Davion Hickson, but ECU just kept coming. McDonald lost another ball in the sun a few batters later before the Pirates eventually broke the game open with a bases-loaded triple off Tom Vincent.

“I haven’t really been a part of anything quite like it,” Cruz said of the decisive eighth inning. “It just seemed like it was just one thing after another after another. A couple plays that we should have executed that probably would have changed the entire inning early on and we just didn’t get it done.”

Trailing 4-0, ECU had scored 12 unanswered runs, tattering the boxscore of the Owls’ best relief pitchers and ruining what began as a storybook afternoon for Rice baseball.

“Ultimately there’s 27 outs and we were just a little short there at the end.”

The 12-run eighth-inning implosion exacerbated what had been a 1-for-11 outing with runners in scoring position for Rice hitters with 11 runners left on base. An ineffective offensive day combined with a bad inning to end all bad innings sent the Owls to the loser’s bracket. The next time they play, tomorrow against UAB, their season will be on the line.

More: Parker Smith’s journey from hometown kid to Rice Baseball ace

Cruz will turn to Parker Smith to start that elimination game. “He’s been our ace the entire year, for a couple years, really. He’s going to be ready to go and I’m sure he’s going to be chomping at the bit to get out there,” Cruz said.

“It stinks at the moment, but we got to try and shake it off and be as prepared as possible for tomorrow.”

Up Next: vs 5-Seed UAB – Wednesday, May 22 at 12:00 p.m. CT

Subscribe on Patreon for exclusive Rice football recruiting updates, practice notes and more.

Recent Posts

2024 American Conference Baseball Tournament: Preview, schedule, how to watch

By

The American Conference Baseball Tournament is set to begin in Clearwater, FL. Here’s how to watch and what to be looking for this week.

The final weekend of regular season play saw teams jockeying for position, but now the American Conference Baseball Tournament field is finally set. The top eight squads will square off with hopes of an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament and their chance to play for a trip to the College World Series. The bottom two teams in the standings: Memphis and South Florida, will be watching from home with all six of the former C-USA additions reaching their inaugural AAC Tournament field.

All games will be streamed on ESPN+ with the exception of the tournament championship, available on ESPN News. The tournament runs from Tuesday, May 21 to Sunday, May 26. The full schedule and updated bracket are available on the American Conference Baseball Tournament website.

Assessing the field

The favorite | East Carolina has been the most complete team in this conference from start to finish. The only ranked squad, the Pirates are the clear frontrunners and boast the ability to beat teams with their arms and their bats.

The contender | UTSA didn’t finish far behind ECU in the conference standings and won the head-to-head series with the Pirates earlier this season. The Roadrunners are talented, albeit inconsistent. When they’re at their best they’re hard to beat.

The dark horse | A team with a couple of quality starters can make a run in tournament play. In this league, UAB gits the bill. Both Blazye Berry and Colin Daniel boast top five ERAs in the conference. If they start hot and make the winners bracket, UAB will have a shot.

The wild card | Tulane has the ability to bludgeon opponents with their bats. The Green Wave led the league with 80 hores and finished second in slugging percentage. If they can cut down on strikeouts and run into a few pitches, they have the tools to pull off an upset or two.

The bracket

The opening day of games will take place on Tuesday, May 21:

Game 1 – 9:00 AM | (5) UAB vs (4) Wichita State

Game 2 – approx. 12:30 PM | (1) ECU vs (8) Rice

Game 3 – 4:00 PM | (7) Charlotte vs (2) UTSA

Game 4 – approx. 7:30 PM | (6) FAU vs (3) Tulane

Subscribe on Patreon for exclusive Rice football recruiting updates, practice notes and more.

Recent Posts

AAC Baseball: Lots on the line in final weekend

By

Every team is alive in the AAC Baseball conference tournament hunt and the regular season title remains up for grabs in the final weekend of the season.

SCHOOL CONF OVERALL NEXT

Notable storylines results

1. Pirates and Roadrunners and the battle for first place

Things couldn’t be much closer at the top of the conference.  UTSA has a one game leader over UTSA, but the Roadrunners took the conference series over the Pirates, giving them the tiebreaker. If ECU sweeps Rice, they take the conference crown. If they fail to win three more, that opens the door for UTSA and other possible permutations. ECU has lost four straight AAC games entering the final weekend.

2. Memphis a longshot

Memphis does have two series wins, but one of them (over Tulane) is irrelevant because of how far ahead the Green Wave are over the Tigers in the standings. The head to head over Rice might be pivotal, though, depending on how these next three games go. They have be far the most tenuous path to the postseason and would need help, most likely from Rice and USF, to advance to Clearwater.

3. Who has tiebreakers over who?

As this league has already seen in men’s and women’s basketball in recent months, tiebreakers get extremely complicated when we’ve got three or four (or even more) teams tied with identical records. From there, the tiebreaker rules stipulated best records in the tied pair and get more complicated from there.

Rather than try and spell out every scenario — that’s a lot to type — here’s a brief rundown of the series each team has won this year. Read this as the team before the parenthesis has the head-to-head tiebreaker over the subsequent teams.

ECU: UAB, FAU, Charlotte, Wichita State, Memphis, USF
UTSA: ECU, Tulane, Charlotte, Memphis, UAB, USF
Tulane: USF, FAU, Wichita State, ECU
Wichita State: UAB, Rice, FAU, UTSA, Charlotte
FAU: Charlotte, Memphis, USF
UAB: Tulane, Charlotte, FAU, Memphis
Charlotte: USF, Memphis, Rice
Rice: UAB, USF, UTSA, FAU
USF: Memphis, Wichita State
Memphis: Rice, Tulane

4. Series to watch

Rice at ECU and UTSA at FAU are both fascinating matchups. One side of the pairing is playing for their postseason lives. The other can win the league outright if things go well. Then add the extra dynamic of Rice owning the head-to-head tiebreaker over FAU, taking two of three from the other Owls this past weekend.

Subscribe on Patreon for exclusive Rice football recruiting updates, practice notes and more.

Recent Posts

Innovation the Focus for New American Athletic Conference Commissioner Tim Pernetti

By

Newly appointed American Athletic Conference commissioner Tim Pernetti has big dreams and aggressive goals for the conference’s future.

On Thursday, for only the second time in the history of the American Athletic Conference, a new commissioner was introduced. Tim Pernetti, a veteran in the college sports and media industry, offered his opening remarks to the assembled media, consummating a pivotal moment of change for a conference that has been a hallmark of consistency and endurance in its 11-year history to date.

Previously under the leadership of Mike Aresco, who was notably unafraid to challenge mainstream narratives, it became clear rather quickly the American Athletic Conference would maintain its unabashed boldness under its second-ever commissioner.

“The status quo I just don’t think is acceptable any longer,” Pernetti said, remarking about how much college athletics has changed since his days as an athlete and an athletic director. In his eyes, if conferences didn’t do all they could to get with the times, they were going to be left behind.

And to that end, not only was Pernetti emphatic about not falling behind, but he views the American Athletic Conference as an engine for change and leadership, a body that is both able to meet opportunities head-on and willing to swim in those uncertain waters.

From private equity, to sponsorship and naming rights, to further expansion of the College Football Playoff, Pernetti repeated multiple times a resounding refrain: “Nothing is off the table.”

“I do think there’s a window ahead of us to do some things differently,” he said. “And quite frankly, [to] resource this conference in a way where the members don’t need to leave.”

Pernetti touched on all sorts of hot-button issues facing the industry today. Rather than obfuscate, he asked questions. What do we want college athletics to look like in the future? Where does this conference fit into that bigger picture?

Through it all, Pernetti maintained one crystal-clear message. “We want this conference to be known as the most innovative conference in collegiate athletics,” he said. “Innovate is an overused word sometimes, but elevating the enterprise to do things differently, to take big swings and naturally, that’s going to require the same factors, grit, resiliency, taking some chances on some things.

“I’m convinced that the group that hired me into this job is ready to do that and I’m excited about that.”

Subscribe on Patreon for exclusive Rice football recruiting updates, practice notes and more.

Recent Posts

2024 AAC Women’s Basketball Tournament Preview

By

The 2024 AAC Women’s Basketball Tournament is slated to tip off in Fort Worth, TX this week. Here’s a preview of the action.

The Favorite: Tulsa

Temira Poindexter and Delanie Crawford rank second and third in the AAC in scoring. No team in the league boasts a tandem as productive as this one has been for the Golden Hurricane. Tulsa has the longest active winning streak in league play, five games, and head-to-head wins over No. 2 Seed North Texas and No. 3 Seed Temple (Tulsa split the season series with Temple 1-1).

The Contenders: North Texas, Temple

North Texas might be the most consistent team in the league. They shoot the ball well and play solid defense almost every game. In total, that’s driven the Mean Green to the top scoring margin in the AAC, outscoring opponents by 11.2 points, which is more than double every team in the league outside of Temple.

As for Temple, the Owls rank second in the AAC in defense, allowing 62.7 points per game. Opponents are shooting just 29 percent from three against the Owls and below 40 percent from the floor. There’s a reason the league standings ended in a three-way tie at the top with these three good teams.

The Dark Horse: South Florida

Once picked as the preseason No. 1 team, South Florida got off to a slow start in league play and fell toward the rest of the pack in the standings. The talent is still there, albeit with some inconsistency in performance from game to game. The Bulls lead the conference in assist/turnover ratio. If they can play clean basketball and keep up their solid defense they could make some noise.

The Wild Card: Memphis

The Tigers were left for dead in mid-February, bottom dwellers in the standings with a 4-11 record. Then something clicked. They ended the season on a 5-1 run, knocking off East Carolina, Rice, Tulane, UTSA and UAB before falling to North Texas. They get a rematch with ECU in Fort Worth. One upset against Tulsa in the next round and their Cinderella dreams might not sound that farfetched.

The Bracket

The opening day of games will take place on Saturday, March 9, with the majority of the teams in action on Sunday, March 10. Here are the first two days of action. The full schedule is available on the conference website. All early-round games can be streamed on ESPN+, with the championship on ESPNU.

First Round | Saturday, March 9

Game 1: No. 13 Wichita State vs. No. 12 Florida Atlantic – 4 p.m. CT
Game 2: No. 14 Tulane vs. No. 11 SMU – 6 p.m. CT

Second Round | Sunday, March 10

Game 3: No. 9 East Carolina vs. No. 8 Memphis – 12 p.m. CT
Game 4: Game 1 winner vs. No. 5 South Florida – 2 p.m. CT
Game 5: No. 10 Rice vs. No. 7 UAB – 6 p.m. CT
Game 6: Game 2 winner vs. No. 6 Charlotte – 8 p.m. CT

https://twitter.com/American_Conf/status/1765556810608431384

Subscribe on Patreon for exclusive Rice football recruiting updates, practice notes and more.

Recent Posts