800 wins add another chapter to Graham's lore

By Meghan Hall     3/26/09 7:00pm

Although it may seem like just yesterday that he was collecting a trophy for 700 wins, Head Coach Wayne Graham will soon have more hardware lining his mantelpiece. With the baseball team's 4-3 road win over the University of Southern Mississippi last Friday, Graham collected his 800th win of his coaching career, a mark rarely seen in college athletics. This mark was but one of numerous highlights for the fourth-ranked Owls (15-6, 2-1 Conference USA) last week. After blitzing the University of Houston 8-1, Rice took two of three against Southern Miss (13-9, 1-2 C-USA) before taking on Lamar University on Tuesday. The contest started sloppily, but the finish of the contest against the Cardinals (16-8) was well worth the price of admission. The Owls' 12-inning, 9-8 win at Reckling Park was an appropriately exciting start to their nine-game homestand.

Right after their win over the top-ranked University of Texas on March 17, Rice headed across town to face Cougars (7-16, 3-1 C-USA). Though their second game of the year against the Cougars did not count toward the conference record, the Owls' 8-1 win gave them a 2-0 advantage in the annual five-game series for the Silver Glove Trophy. The last of the games will take place May 1-3 at Houston's Cougar Field.

Freshman phenom Anthony Rendon, Rice's third baseman, was Rice's star in this game, just as he was in Rice's home opener against Houston Feb. 25. In that first contest, Rendon finished the game 4-4 with a home run and three RBIs. In this contest, Rendon was 4-5 with a home run and three RBIs.

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Rendon, a local product of Lamar High School, is currently second on the team in hitting, with a .353 batting average, and tops the team in home runs, RBIs, total bases and slugging percentage.

While Graham is pleased with Rendon's success, neither he nor his coaching staff are particularly surprised.

"When I saw him in the fall I expected him to be a truly outstanding player because I thought he was a talent," Graham said. "We expect him to be a great hitter, but he's also been an outstanding fielder, and that's been very gratifying."

Credit for Rice's win also goes to junior second baseman Brock Holt, who contributed to the Owls' 15-hit attack with three of his own. However, five seemed to be the key number for Rice in the game: Five Owls had multi-hit games, and Houston committed five errors.

The pitching for the Owls was mostly by committee. Junior Mark Haynes started, followed by sophomore Abel Gonzales (1-0), junior Jared Rogers, freshman Andrew Benak and sophomore Matt Evers, who collectively held the Cougars to one unearned run and six hits.

After the whooping, Rice headed to Hattiesburg, Miss., for a three-game conference series against Southern Miss for the two teams' first meeting of the year.

On Friday night, the game was scoreless for the first five innings and tight the whole way through until the Owls pushed the winning run across in the top of the ninth for a 4-3 win. Sophomore shortstop Rick Hague, leading the team in hitting at .357, reached base on a walk and then scored on a wild pitch.

The Owls' first three runs of the win came in the seventh inning, with a two-run double by junior outfielder Steven Sultzbaugh and a run-scoring single off the bat of freshman outfielder Jeremy Rathjen.

Junior Mike Ojala started and continued the trip's theme of solid pitching, throwing four scoreless innings and only allowing four hits with three strikeouts. Evers (1-0) picked up his first win of the season with two scoreless innings.

The win, Graham's 800th at the helm of the Rice baseball program, is a shining example of Graham's strong leadership of the squad. The coach is certainly pleased by the milestone, but it is not high on his list of concerns.

"I don't really react much to those [achievements]," Graham said. "It's nice. They're milestones, but I'm really more worried about what we're doing at the present. Like I say, it's always nice because each hundred [wins] you meet, people pay attention."

The second game against the Golden Eagles was nowhere near as close: Rice dominated 16-4 on 16 hits. Eight of the nine starters had at least one hit, and seven of those finished with multi-hit games. As part of his continuous hot streak, Rendon hit two home runs and collected four RBIs, while Hague and junior first baseman Jimmy Comerota also hit home runs. Junior Ryan Berry's (4-0) streak of 27 innings without an earned run came to an end, allowing three, but the righty still picked up his fourth straight victory of the season.

But Rice's pitching promptly turned shaky over the next couple games, hit hard by two significant injuries. Ojala, who leads the staff in innings pitched and has the team's second-lowest ERA at 1.38, is expected to be out of action for two weeks with arm troubles. The Owls also anticipate Berry, the team's leader in wins and the anchor of the pitching staff, to miss at least a month with more arm issues.

The Owls let their third game against the Golden Eagles slip away as they lost 5-4. Rice held a slim 4-2 lead heading into the bottom of the ninth, thanks to four runs in the top of the sixth on two hits - including a bases-loaded, two-run single from Rendon - and a walk and fielding error. But Southern Miss tacked on the go-ahead run in the bottom of the ninth, scoring three off of senior reliever Jordan Rogers (4-2) in the bottom of the ninth.

Coming back to Reckling Park for their nine-game homestand, the Owls were glad to win their first conference series and get it behind them.

"Anytime you can win a road series in conference against a quality opponent, it's very meaningful," Graham said, "We had a chance to win the whole thing and we kind of blew that, but nevertheless it's always a real good thing."

Against Lamar, in Rice's longest game in 10 years, the team scrounged up two runs in the bottom of the 12th for the win after the Cardinals scored in the top of the inning. With two outs in the bottom half of the inning, Comerota drove in the tying run and then, after stealing second base, scored on Rendon's game-winning hit through the left side.

Hague, junior designated hitter Diego Seastrunk and freshman catcher Craig Manuel all finished with three hits while Comerota had four, a career-high. The Owls had to use eight pitchers throughout the night, including Seastrunk, and junior Jared Rogers (1-0) got the win, the first of his Rice career.

Although they are currently third in conference, Rice has maintained an impressive ranking all season. Still, Graham is cautious when considering the numbers.

"The oddity is so many teams are losing," Graham said. "That's one of the reasons we're ranked so high because we've won six out of seven games against top 25 teams . but we're pretty hurt right now so we're going to have to hang in there.

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