Rice University
Charlotte
Owls Host C-USA Leader Charlotte This Weekend
5/13/2021 11:17:00 AM | Baseball
Final Four Games At Reckling Park; Fridat Start Time 1 PM
Game 50 | vs. Charlotte, Friday, May 14, 1 pm
Game 51 | vs. Charlotte, Saturday, May 15, 1 pm (Game 1 of DH)
Game 52 | vs. Charlotte, Saturday, May 15, 1 pm (Game 2 of DH)
Game 53 | vs. Charlotte, Sunday, May 16, 12 Noon
Location: Reckling Park; Houston
Rice Game Day Program: Online
Video Stream: CUSAtv
Listen Online: Audio
Live Stats: Here (all games this series)
Series vs. Charlotte: Rice leads 10-5 since 2015; Complete series listing
* Note the Friday start time is a change from some earlier listings. This is to accommodate the University's commencement festivities scheduled for later that evening.
Reckling Park Update
Rice University recently announced adjustments to the COVID-19 protocols in outdoor spaces. Visitors on campus are only required to wear a mask when they are indoors or come within three feet of others. We encourage fans who attend the game to have their masks with them in the event they enter an indoor space (restrooms, suites, etc) or are within three feet of people in the concourse. In coordination with these changes the picnic area in front of The Roost brewed by Karbach will now be open and the concessions menu has been expanded. Seat arrangements remain unchanged and socially distanced reserved seats are still available.
Parking At The Park
Parking is free in the Greenbriar Lot west of Rice Stadium and $5 in the Orange Lots (West Lot 3, 4 and 5).
Hail Seniors!
Members of the current Rice senior class, and other Owl graduates, will be honored before the start of Sunday's game.
Watch League Games Online Via CUSAtv
Conference USA league games are slated for a live online video broadcast via CUSAtv. The broadcast is a subscription service which matches the play-by-play audio with a video feed to create a television-like production on the Internet (either live or in an archived format).
Rice Play-By-Play Audio On The Web
Every Rice baseball game is scheduled for a live audio broadcast on the Internet at RiceOwls.com. Tune-in to the broadcast's pregame show 10 minutes before first pitch. Veteran J.P. Heath is now in his 13th season as the voice of the Owls.
Live Stats Links Online at RiceOwls.com
Links to live play-by-play text and statistics from every game, home and away, are posted on RiceOwls.com. Look for the links on the Rice Athletics front page, the weekly series preview, and/or the baseball schedule page.
Follow The Tweeting Rice Owls
The official Rice baseball Twitter account is @RiceBaseball while the Rice Athletics department is @RiceAthletics. Twitter is perhaps the fastest way to get weather-related changes to the schedule/updated start times.
Head Coach Matt Bragga
A 20-year veteran of the head coaching ranks, Matt Bragga was named the 21st head coach in Rice baseball history on June 15, 2018. He went 26-33 at Rice in his first season in 2019. The Owls were 2-14 when the 2020 season came to an abrupt end, but consider Rice's (non-conference) schedule featuring road series at Texas Tech and UC Irvine, plus another four games against Texas and Texas A&M, was rated as the 11th-toughest in all of Division I. Prior to Rice Bragga sent 15 years as the Head Coach at Tennessee Tech, building that program into one of the best in the Ohio Valley Conference. The four-time OVC Coach of the Year led the Golden Eagles to three NCAA Tournament appearances, winning six OVC championships in 10 years while reaching 40 or more wins in four of six seasons from 2013-2018. In 2018, he helped Tennessee Tech to its best season in school history, amassing a school and OVC-record 53 wins, the most in the country, while leading the team to the league's regular season title and its first-ever trip to the NCAA Super Regionals. The Jefferson, Ohio, native who played collegiately at Kentucky before a pro playing career, owns a Division I coaching record of 495-466-3. Bragga is aided by assistant coaches Cory Barton (Memphis, 2007, third year), Paul Janish (Rice, 2004; fourth year), and Trevor Putzig (Tenn Tech, 2018; first year).
Rice's Possible Starting Pitchers
Coach Bragga announced Rice's starting pitchers for the first two games of the Charlotte series as the veteran right-handed duo of grad transfer Mitchell Holcomb (6-4, 6.08) and senior Roel Garcia (1-5, 5.26). Coach Bragga will announce the remaining starters at a later time.
• Mitchell Holcomb is a graduate transfer from the Ivy League (Penn) who is originally from Georgetown, Texas. Holcomb started the opening game of the 2021 season vs. HBU and due to a quirk in the schedule he wound up with the demanding assignment of starting three games in a 12-day stretch. In an earlier string of four starts (March 13 to April 2) he maintained a 2.20 ERA, a .226 opponents' batting average and a 9.3-to-1 strikeouts-to-walks ratio in a combined 28.2 frames. On April 2 against Middle Tennessee, Holcomb notched his second complete game in as many weeks. By simply joining Rice he became one of the most experienced Division I pitchers on the Owl staff, already owning a total of 31 career appearances, including 28 starts, totaling 163.0 innings prior to Rice. In four years at Penn he maintained a 4.03 career ERA and averaged 7.8 strikeouts per 9.0 innings of work. Holcomb made two starts on the mound for the Quakers in abbreviated 2020 season totaling 13.0 innings. He fired 8.0 shutout innings scattering four hits and striking out eight for a road victory at C-USA foe FIU. In the 2020 season he held opposing hitters to a composite .213 batting average. A highlight from earlier in his career was fanning 12 batters at Yale in 2018. The Texas native is a 2016 graduate of Meridian High School (located between Fort Worth and Waco). He was a two-time first team All-State selection who led the Yellow Jackets to back-to-back 2A state titles in 2015-2016.
• It may have taken a long time in finally arriving, but Roel Garcia is back in 2021 and working in his first full collegiate season since 2018. By design this year Garcia has gradually increased his work load. He pitched just 4.0 innings in his first two starts against HBU and Louisiana. He moved up 5.0 innings against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi on March 6 and had 4.0 frames in a 7-inning game vs. UTSA in C-USA's opening weekend (March 27). At Old Dominion Garcia was tabbed for his first series-opening start of a C-USA weekend this year. In a road game at UTSA he took all the necessary steps of preparing for a start, but then had the hard luck having it changed due to an extended lightning delay before he took the mound. This season Garcia has maintained a 5.26 ERA with 35 strikeouts and 15 walks in 51.1 innings. In 2020, Garcia had just one outing where he struck out three of the eight batters he faced in 2.0 innings at west coach power Cal Irvine. Things were looking up, but then the 2020 season came to an unexpected end and he had to replay the waiting game. The Deer Park, Texas, native is a veteran in his fifth year with the program, but he was sidelined all of 2019. Even without pitching in a single game in 2019, that did not stop the Toronto Blue Jays from selecting him in the 27th round of that year's MLB Draft. The 6-foot-4 right-hander had an improved second season of Division I baseball in 2018, finishing among the Rice staff leaders in starts (tied second), wins (tied third), innings (fourth), strikeouts (fifth) and opponents' batting average (fifth). He made 15 pitching appearances with 11 starts, including six times in C-USA league games. Garcia totaled 52.0 innings with starts against high-RPI teams Texas A&M, TCU, Southern Miss and Florida Atlantic (twice). He pitched at least 5.0 innings in a game six times. Garcia was tabbed to be a significant part of Matt Bragga's debut Rice season in 2019, but the big right-hander was lost for the year in a preseason practice in January.
Series History
Rice leads the all-time series vs. Charlotte 10-5, but has fell to the 49ers in four of the last six meetings dating back to 2018. The Owls have had better success, a 7-2 record, when playing on the road at Charlotte compared to a 3-3 ledger at home at Reckling Park. This weekend's series is the first between the seams since 2019.
Here's Who's Hot
The old veterans are really stepping up and producing in the home stretch! Braden Comeaux enters the Charlotte series batting .368 (14-of-last-38) with a .429 on-base percentage and eight runs scored over the last 11 games. Cade Edwards is hitting .349 (15-for-43) with a .535 SLG% and 12 runs scored over the last ten games. Bradley Gneiting is batting .340 (17-for-50) with a .600 slugging percentage and 12 RBI over the last 14 games. Hal Hughes went 8-for-15 (.523) with a .pair of doubles in the UAB series. Will Karp was 5-for-13 (.385) with three steals, three walks and two RBI in the series victory at UAB.
Winning Is Always In Fashion
For the fashion-minded, Rice's 2021 W-L records while wearing the various uniform combinations is as follows:
2-1 in blue jersey, 'Rice' in white Old English and gray pants
4-3 in gradient white jersey
3-3-1 in blue top, 'Rice' in Old English and pinstripe pants
2-2 in white jersey, 'Rice' in blue Old English
4-5 in pinstripes
4-5 in all gray ('Rice' in blue Old English)
1-2 in gradient blue jersey with white pants
1-2 in gray "R" top
0-1 in blue top, 'Rice' in Old English and white pants
0-3 in gradient blue jersey with gray pants
Previously: Owls Defeat UAB 10-5 Sunday To Take Weekend Series
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Rice scored five runs in the fifth inning, led by Bradley Gneiting's three run home run, to break open the game as Rice defeated UAB, 10-5, Sunday afternoon to earn the series victory... Rice scored first for the fourth time this series. With one out in the third inning, Braden Comeaux singled and moved to second on a wild pitch. After he moved to third on a ground out, Austin Bulman was hit by a pitch. Will Karp followed with a single to left field to score Comeaux and give the Owls the lead... UAB tied the game in the bottom half of the inning, stringing a pair of hits around a walk. But the Owls busted it open in the fifth inning. Cade Edwards reached on an error and advanced to second to lead off the inning. Comeaux singled to put runners on the corners. Bradley Gneiting then hit his eighth home run of the year over the right field wall. Two batters later, Karp doubled, and then moved to third on a ground out. Antonio Cruz and Hal Hughes followed with a pair of doubles of their own to score two more runs as the Rice took a 6-1 lead... A pair of leadoff hits led to a run for the Blazers in the bottom of the fifth. But in the sixth, Rice got its run back as it loaded the bases before Karp brought in Edwards on a sacrifice fly... UAB cut it to four with a run in the sixth, but the Owls answered right back in the seventh. Antonio Cruz was hit by a pitch to lead off the inning and Hughes singled. After Justin Dunlap pinch ran for Cruz, Justin Long sacrificed them over. Edwards then singled to left center to score Dunlap and Hughes. Comeaux walked and the runners moved up on a wild pitch, allowing Edwards to come home on Gneiting's sacrifice fly to give Rice its largest lead of the game, 10-3... Rice improved to 21-27-1 overall and 9-18-1 in Conference USA. UAB dropped to 16-33 overall and 9-19 in C-USA.
• Guy Garibay went 3.1 innings to earn the victory, striking out two.
• Gneiting hit his eighth home run of the year in the fifth inning. He tied a career-high with four runs batted in.
• Comeaux was 2-for-4, his team-leading 21st multi-hit game of the year.
Rice Since 1999
Using the 1999 season as the starting point (the year the NCAA expanded the postseason tournament field to 64 teams with the current Super Regional format), Rice baseball has maintained one of the nation's top win percentages over the last 22 years. Here's a closer look at the country's winningest programs from 1999-2020 (note: this listing will not be updated to include games played in 2021):
Team Years Wins Loses Ties PCT
Florida State 22 1019 391 1 .723
North Carolina 22 948 406 1 .700
LSU 22 950 432 6 .687
South Carolina 22 938 438 0 .682
Coastal Carolina 22 896 418 2 .682
Rice 22 924 435 2 .680
Miami (Fla.) 22 894 421 3 .679
Oral Roberts 22 849 416 0 .671
Cal St. Fullerton 22 881 434 0 .670
Texas 22 894 450 1 .665
Oregon St. 22 811 422 3 .657
Louisville 22 866 453 1 .656
Arizona St. 22 805 422 2 .656
Georgia Tech 22 858 456 1 .653
Virginia 22 840 446 3 .653
Florida 22 888 474 2 .652
Clemson 22 891 478 1 .651
