Owls down Houston, claw way to conference tops

By Ryan Glassman     4/8/10 7:00pm

As the calendar turns to April and school's end comes into sight, the schedule is just heating up for the baseball team. At the midway point of the regular season, all concentration shifts to the conference schedule, as Conference USA foes become the focus of the squad's attention. Conference play began slowly for the Owls (17-13) two weeks ago at the University of Memphis, as Rice dropped the first two games of the weekend series to the Tigers (13-16). But in the tail end of a Saturday doubleheader, the Owls' offense erupted for 13 runs as Rice cruised to an easy 13-4 win to salvage the final game of the series.

Rice followed up the victory with a 7-2 win on the road against Lamar University, as six Owls pitchers combined to hold the Cardinals (17-12) to just two runs. But this game would prove just a precursor for a crucial three-game weekend conference series against crosstown rival University of Houston at Reckling Park last weekend.

The Owls sent sophomore ace Taylor Wall to the hill on Thursday evening against Houston (13-14), and the southpaw was simply brilliant, piecing together by far the best outing of the season for a Rice pitcher. Wall threw a complete game one-hitter, shutting out the Cougars while striking out seven batters in the Owls' 6-0 victory.

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Wall, whose elevated ERA does not do justice to how well he has pitched thus far this season, attributed the stellar performance to a few words of wisdom from his coach.

"Coach [Wayne] Graham called me into his office about a week ago and said, 'You're not having fun out there. You've got to have fun to throw the baseball,'" Wall said. "[Thursday] I was just relaxed and having fun and just went out there and pounded the [strike] zone and just made it easy."

The series-opening win pulled Rice's conference record to 2-2.

Friday evening saw another victory for the Owls; junior Abe Gonzales threw five and a third shutout innings of relief following a solid outing from senior Jared Rogers, with Rice at 11-2. The balanced offensive attack was paced by sophomore Jeremy Rathjen and freshman Michael Ratterree, who each drove in three runs in the game. Seniors Steven Sultzbaugh, Diego Seastrunk and Jimmy Comerota, as well as junior Rick Hague, all had multi-hit games as seven different Owls notched at least one RBI in the winning effort.

Sophomore Anthony Rendon gave Rice the early 4-2 lead with a grand slam in the first inning, good enough for his 11th home run of the season, but Houston chipped away and eventually pulled ahead 7-6 with a home run in the eighth inning.

Sophomore Craig Manuel led off the 10th with a deep drive, but the ball died at the warning track as the potential walk-off effort fell short.

But just two innings later, Manuel would not be denied: The Owls' catcher hit a towering fly ball over the right field wall to end the game in dramatic fashion.

Manuel, who had yet to hit a home run at Rice before Saturday, was confident he had won the game from the moment he connected with the pitch.

"I never hit a ball that solid since I've been here," Manuel said. "If that didn't get out, there was no chance for me to ever hit a home run."

The 8-7 win gave Rice the series sweep of Houston, while improving the team's conference record to 4-2 on the season.

On Tuesday, Rice played host to Dallas Baptist University in a non-conference bout, but the Owls' five-game winning streak came to a halt in a frustrating 7-6 loss at the hands of the Patriots (17-12). Rice fell behind 5-0 in the first inning but would whittle away and trim the deficit to 7-6 before Rendon lined out to end the game.

Standing tied atop C-USA with a 4-2 record, the Owls will travel to New Orleans to face conference foe Tulane University (20-10, 4-2 C-USA) in a three-day series beginning tonight at 6:30 p.m.

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