Rice University
2-2
Texas
3-1
Texas Tops Rice Tuesday Night
2/19/2019 12:03:00 AM | Baseball
Owls Next Host No. 24 Arizona Wednesday At 6:30 PM
The Owls opened the scoring in the bottom of the second as Antonio Cruz drove home Dominic DiCaprio for an early 1-0 lead. Texas answered by batting around in the top of the third to take a 5-1 advantage. Rice loaded the bases in the bottom of the frame, but the Longhorns made a move to the bullpen and worked out of the jam. Texas led 8-1 when the Owls struck for three runs on four hits in the bottom of the fifth to cut the margin in half. UT added runs in the sixth, eighth and ninth for an 11-4 final.
The sophomore tandem of Trei Cruz and Justin Collins both collected two of the Owls' seven hits. The duo have reached base safely in every Rice game so far in the young season. The Blue & Gray had a sound and solid effort on the mound from senior pitcher Blair Lewis. The Hummelstown, Pa., native struck out a career-high four batters while working a career-long 4.0 innings.
Matt Bragga said – "Right now we have made nine errors in four games and we have to start taking better care of the baseball. Sometimes we've been too aggressive, trying to force a play that wasn't there and other times there have been some small things like not properly backing-up on a play. Until we handle the ball better we'll just be OK. We have to play defense. We're not doing that right now, but it's very correctable. We'll come through and do a better job defensively. Offensively we have to be better when we get balls to hit. If we do that I think we're dangerous. Overall it was not good enough on the mound tonight, but I do think Blair came in and did one whale of a job. He gave us chance by being able to work a lot of innings. What Blair was able to do tonight was very important with five games coming up in six days against some really very good teams. I knew this week in our schedule would be a challenge, and I want to see how we handle this tough stretch of games."
Rice is right back in home action on Wednesday night (Feb. 20) when the Owls host No. 24 ranked Arizona. Start time is set for 6:30 pm at Reckling Park. The Blue & Gray then have a three-game weekend series vs . No. 25 UC-Irvine beginning on Feb. 22.
Team Stats
Pitching:
W: Ridgeway, Beau (1-0)
L: Greenwood, Drake (0-1)
Batting:
2B: Reynolds, Ryan 1 ; McCann, Michael 1
3B: Kennedy, Eric 1 ; Petrinsky, DJ 1
HR: Zubia, Zach 1
RBI: Shaw, Tate 1 ; Kennedy, Eric 1 ; Todd, Austin 2 ; Zubia, Zach 3 ; Petrinsky, DJ 3
SH: Todd, Austin 1
SF: Zubia, Zach 1
Base Running:
RUNS: Ellis, Duke 2 ; Kennedy, Eric 3 ; Zubia, Zach 2 ; Petrinsky, DJ 1 ; McCann, Michael 1 ; Reagan, Bryce 2
SB: Todd, Austin 2 ; Petrinsky, DJ 1
HBP: Reynolds, Ryan 1
Batting:
2B: Collins, Justin 1
RBI: DiCaprio, Dominic 1 ; Collins, Justin 1 ; Edwards, Cade 1 ; Cruz, Antonio 1
Base Running:
RUNS: Gneiting, Bradley 1 ; Cruz, Trei 1 ; Dunlap, Andrew 1 ; DiCaprio, Dominic 1
SB: Gneiting, Bradley 1
HBP: Dunlap, Andrew 1
