Rice University
17-30, 7-17
UTSA
36-12, 19-4
UTSA Rallies to Sweep Series
5/7/2023 4:33:00 PM | Baseball
Owls to honor '23 graduates before Tuesday's game with UIW
The Details: Ben Royo opened the scoring with a solo homer in the top of the second, a long drive over the batter's eye in center. It was his 12th of the year, his seventh in conference play, and his fourth against UTSA in the six-game series. UTSA took a 5-1 lead with four runs in the bottom of the third, but the Owls responded with five runs of their own in their next trip to the plate. Royo led off with a bunt single and Manny Garza followed with a double to put runners at second and third. Drew Holderbach brought Royo home with a sac fly. Christian Salazar followed with an RBI single to score Riedel to cut the deficit to two at 5-3. One out later, Max Johnson worked a walk to bring Guy Garibay Jr. to the plate and the junior laced a 2-1 pitch over the wall in right for his seventh homer and put the Owls back in front. That lead held until the bottom of the six as the Roadrunners slammed a pair of homers, the second a grand slam to take the lead for good.
Notes
- Rice fell to 4-6 in series finales and was swept in a conference road series for the first time this year.
- The Owls' two homers in the game gave them 14 in the six-game series against UTSA and 27 in 24 C-USA games this season, matching their total in 30 games last year.
- Rice finished with 12 hits, the season-high fourth consecutive game with a double-digit hit total.
- Royo's homer in the second moved him into a tie with Bubba Crosby (1996) and Vincent Sinisi (2002) for the fourth-most home runs by a freshman in school history. Head coach Jose Cruz Jr. is third with 13 in 1993.
- Royo hit .333 (9x27) with four homers and seven RBI in six games vs. UTSA this season.
- Garibay's home run was his seventh, surpassing his career high of six in each of his first two years at Rice. It was only the fifth of his 19 career homers hit away from Reckling Park.
- Garibay hit .304 with three homers and seven RBI in the series with the Roadrunners.
- Riedel's infield single in the third inning allowed him to extend his career-best hitting streak to 12 games. He added a double in the game and is now hitting .431 over his streak (22x51).
- Smigelski's first-inning homer extended his hitting streak to nine games, matching his career-best set last season.
Team Stats
Pitching:
W: RIOJAS, Ruger (5-0)
L: Cienfuegos, Cristian (2-2)
Batting:
2B: Riedel, Jack 1 ; Garza, Manny 1
HR: Garibay Jr., Guy 1 ; Royo, Ben 1
RBI: Garibay Jr., Guy 3 ; Royo, Ben 1 ; Holderbach, Drew 1 ; Salazar, Christian 1
SH: Johnson , Max 1
SF: Holderbach, Drew 1
Base Running:
RUNS: Garibay Jr., Guy 1 ; Royo, Ben 2 ; Garza, Manny 1 ; Salazar, Christian 1 ; Johnson , Max 1
SB: Devenny, Jacob 1
HBP: Smigelski, Aaron 1 ; Devenny, Jacob 1
Batting:
3B: KING, Matt 1
HR: BARRY, Leyton 1 ; VALDEZ, Antonio 1 ; HILL, Caleb 1
RBI: BARRY, Leyton 4 ; VALDEZ, Antonio 3 ; HILL, Caleb 1 ; KING, Matt 1
Base Running:
RUNS: BARRY, Leyton 1 ; SMITH, Taylor 1 ; VALDEZ, Antonio 1 ; HILL, Caleb 2 ; KING, Matt 2 ; DIAZ, Sammy 1 ; POSTON, Garrett 1 ; PORTER, Dalton 2
CS: DIAZ, Sammy 1
HBP: BARRY, Leyton 1 ; POSTON, Garrett 1 ; PORTER, Dalton 1
