The Rice Owls might have already clinched a share of the Conference USA baseball championship, and they might have already clinched the number-one seed in next week’s C-USA tournament.
But don’t tell the Owls that these remaining three regular season games don’t count.
The Owls (34-19) hosted the UAB Blazers (27-24) last night, and the Owls came away with a rather easy 5-2 victory to go to 16-6 in conference play. But along with getting the win, the Owls continued with their quest to gain momentum heading into the tournament, they continued towards a goal of hosting a NCAA Regional, and most important, they just might have found another pitcher to go with Mike Ojala as the team heads into the postseason.
Jared Rogers, making his 12th start of the season, pitched easily his
best game of the season, going 7.2 innings and giving up only four hits
and no runs.
Rogers has struggled this season, not always having confidence in
himself, not always having the proper focus. But Owls coach Wayne
Graham thinks Rogers is ready.
“It’s there,” Graham said. Rogers “[just has to] mentally charge and
focus on every pitch, not coast, that’s all he’s got to do. He’s got to
trust himself. He’s got good control. Tonight he had a real good
slider, good velocity. The ball moved. It was real. What he did to
them was real. He really pitched well.”
Rogers was beat around his last performance, and he was thankful that he
was able to get back on the mound so quickly after his last game.
“It felt good to come out here and throw well,” Rogers said.
“Especially after the last outing I was pretty much mad at myself all
week, so it was good to come out here as soon as I could and get another
outing under my belt.”
Rogers faced a battle that Rice pitchers haven’t dealt with too often
this season. The battle of pitching a game where his offense was being
shut down by the opposition.
The score was only 2-0 when Rogers left the game after surrendering a
single in the top of the seventh with two out. But he said he rather
enjoyed the game and preferred pitching in this kind of game as opposed
to one where his offense “scores10 runs every inning” because it helped
him to keep his focus.
The score was close because, while the game was just one of momentum and
postseason seeding for Rice, it was a game of huge import to UAB in
that they need every win they can get this weekend to make the C-USA
tournament. And UAB starter Mitch Kloskowski did everything possible to
shut down Rice, keeping the hitters off-balance with a good mix of junk
pitches in his five innings of play.
The Owls jumped off to the 1-0 lead in the second inning when Anthony
Rendon, who led off the inning with a walk, scored on Jimmy Comerota’s
sac fly. Rice added to the lead in the fourth inning when Diego
Seastrunk connected on a pitch and drove deep over the wall in right
field.
That’s where the score stayed until the bottom of the eighth inning
where Rice tacked on three runs, the first two runs scoring when Jeremy
Rathjen, who has recently been struggling with the bat, doubled to the
right field gap to plate Daniel Gonzales-Luna and Rick Hague.
Those runs were key as reliever Abe Gonzales struggled for Rice in the
top of the ninth, allowing two runs to make the final score 5-2.
With the win, the Owls kept their momentum going as they head into the
tournament, and they hopefully solidified their rotation. But Graham is
also hoping that a streak at the end of the season can propel his team
further ahead through the C-USA tournament and into a hosting spot for
one of the NCAA regional rounds.
“I think it’s important that we win,” he said. “We’re trying to win the
ballgames because you can’t count on anything. I don’t want to count
on anything. You can’t count on out getting into a regional, and you
can’t count on our not hosting. You win them all, you keep the
possibilities open.”
And after last night’s 5-2 win, open the possibilities still are.
SOME MISCELLANEOUS NOTES:
After last night’s game, with two games remaining in the C-USA regular
season, Rice is the sure number-one seed. But UAB, which held the sixth
and final seed, is at the moment out of the tournament as UAB now has
the same record as the Houston Cougars who won last night. UH has the
tiebreaker over UAB. But the positions could easily flip-flop over the
remaining games and UAB could regain the final spot over Houston….Mike
Ojala gets the start for Rice tonight, and TBA goes for Rice on
Saturday. Tonight’s game is at 6:30, and Rice and UAB close out the
regular season at 1:00 on Saturday.
This article appears in May 20-26, 2010.
