Baseball Announces 2008-2009 Fall & Spring Schedule
10/2/2008 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
Oct. 2, 2008
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HOUSTON - With no shortage to top-flight competition and what may prove to be one the toughest slate of games in the country, the Rice Owls' baseball schedule for the upcoming 2009 season was announced on Thursday, Oct. 2. The spring may be baseball's official seasonal home, but there's also something new in the fall for the Owls' schedule. There are a total of four exhibition games against other schools to be played this fall as part of the baseball team's off-season training period.
There are 56 games on the full 2008-2009 Rice schedule. The 52-game spring slate features 29 home games at Reckling Park and a total of 36 in the city of Houston. The Blue & Gray returns downtown to Minute Maid Park for three games in the Houston College Classic Feb. 27-Mar. 1, the annual tournament hosted by major league baseball's Houston Astros. The Owls play at least 26 games against teams that advanced to NCAA Regionals a year ago and that number will increase once the Houston College Classic's schedule is finalized for participating teams Rice, Baylor, Texas A&M, UCLA, UC-Irvine and the University of Houston.
Rice head coach Wayne Graham said that as in previous years, playing as many tough teams as possible is by design. The rugged schedule prepares the team on the field while building an NCAA Ratings Power Index (R.P.I.) that is high enough to garner consideration for national seed in the NCAA Tournament. In each of the past three years the Owls have turned a high national seed into back-to-back-to-back trips to the College World Series in Omaha, Neb.
"This is a very challenging schedule," Graham said. "Our conference already gives us four other NCAA Regional teams as a starting point. C-USA is very competitive and improved, top-to-bottom. For non-conference, we certainly tried to schedule teams that were in the Top 100. Playing good teams helps you get better, and a schedule like this will do that. We should have a very high RPI when teams are under consideration to host regionals at the end of the year."
Opening day for the 2009 season is Feb. 20. For the second-consecutive year the Owls open the schedule with a three-game road series in California. In 2009 Rice opens with a weekend series at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, Calif. The Blue & Gray returns to Reckling Park on Feb. 25 to host crosstown rival Houston in its home-opener. That meeting with the Cougars is designated as a non-conference contest, but it will be the first of five games with UH for the coveted Silver Glove Trophy as the city's collegiate champion. The remaining Silver Glove Trophy games are March 18 and the three-game C-USA series May 1-3, all to be held at UH.
The Owls make a return visit to Frisco, Tex., on March 4 for a game against NCAA Tournament participant Dallas Baptist in the minor league stadium Dr Pepper Ballpark. The team hosts its annual tournament, The Academy Sports + Outdoors Rice Classic, March 6-8. The 2009 tourney field features Notre Dame, Washington State and NCAA Tournament participant Oral Roberts in round-robin action. The C-USA Tournament, where the league's automatic bid to the NCAA Championships will be on the line, is May 20-24 in Hattiesburg, Miss.
Rice meets a University of San Diego team coming off a 44-win season for four tough games March 12-15. The Owls also have a rugged slate of games against teams from around the region, including familiar foes Lamar, Louisiana-Lafayette, Sam Houston State, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, Texas-San Antonio, Texas State, Texas and Texas A&M. There are home & away games with the Longhorns (March 17 & April 21) that are a rematch from last season's Rice Regional. The Super Regional rematch with the Aggies is April 14 at Reckling Park.
The Owls meet Texas twice in the spring, but it won't the only time the teams clash during the 2008-09 academic year. Rice and Texas are scheduled for two exhibition games in the fall training period, including Oct. 19 in Austin and Oct. 26 at Reckling Park. First pitch for both exhibitions is 12:30 pm. The first game of the fall is at home against Texas State on Oct. 11 at 1 pm. The fall training schedule concludes with a home exhibition game against McNeese State on Nov 1 at 1 pm. Coach Graham explained that replacing some spring games with fall games is a better fit for the Rice student-athletes.
"Last year we tried to play the 56 games beginning on the last week of February (as the NCAA mandates)," coach Graham said. "We tried it, but it didn't make any sense. It put undue academic stress on the team and I will not do that again. We cut games in the spring, but the positive side is it allowed us to move them to the fall.
"The exhibition games won't count in the standings or statistics, but they will do a couple of things," Graham explained. "It's a tremendous benefit to have competition against other teams. We will be able to better evaluate the players and I'm sure the players will get a boost because they will get to face somebody other than their same teammates over and over. We'll get more productive practices from the players if there's something different to practice for each week. Three of the four games are at home and we're going to have the games on just one weekend day. The games won't interfere with a school day. Plus, as a competition day, we could play up to 14 innings.
"This is different than what we've done in the past," coach Graham added. "Fall practices now have a schedule, and I am looking forward to the exhibition games."
Rice baseball's fall practices began on Monday, Sept. 29. The fall schedule for exhibition games is as follows...
Oct. 11 vs. Texas State at Reckling Park, 1pm
Oct. 19 away game at Texas (TBA as either at Dell Diamond or Disch-Falk Field), 12:30 pm
Oct. 26 vs. Texas at Reckling Park, 12:30
Nov. 1 vs. McNeese State at Reckling Park, 1 pm
The price for admission to the Oct. 26 exhibition game (vs. Texas) is $5. The other two home exhibition games and practices are open to the public. More information about various season ticket packages for the upcoming 2009 season will be available soon on RiceOwls.com.