Late Blasts by Boehn and Smith Rally Rice Past Harvard

Saturday, February 28

Reckling Park

4:05 pm

Rice University

5-6

Harvard

0-5

Harvard

Rice

Late Blasts by Boehn and Smith Rally Rice Past Harvard

2/28/2026 8:05:00 PM | Baseball

Box Score

Series wraps up at 12:05 on Sunday

By: by Chuck Pool (cpool@rice.edu)

Houston- Garet Boehm and Paul Smith slammed solo homers in the eighth inning to lift Rice to a 2-1 win over Harvard on Saturday and clinch the series for the Owls.

Boehm sends one 3⃣8⃣9⃣ ft to tie it up!#RiceGuys x #GoOwls 👐 pic.twitter.com/HCihRaMDft
— Rice Baseball (@RiceBaseball) March 1, 2026

Bye. Bye. Baseball!!

Paul Smith sends it 4⃣2⃣7⃣ ft for the lead!#RiceGuys x #GoOwls 👐 pic.twitter.com/MOvLFspk3r
— Rice Baseball (@RiceBaseball) March 1, 2026

How it Happened: After a series-opening slugfest on Friday night that saw the teams combine for 18 runs and 37 baserunners, Saturday's contest was a tight pitching duel between Rice's Ryland Urbanczyk and Harvard's Luca Alagheband, who traded shutout innings through the first four frames. The Crimson broke the ice with an unearned run in the fifth on a two-out passed ball. That lone tally stood up until the eighth when Boehm smashed the first offering from Harvard reliever Brett Gable over the left field wall for his first home run as an Owl. Gable retired the next hitter before he was relieved by Ryan McHugh, who retired his first batter before Smith crushed an 0-1 pitch 427 towards University Boulevard to put Rice in front for the first time. Anthony Diaz, who relieved Urbanczyk in the sixth, cruised into the ninth before a one-out single and a two-out error on a strikeout, but the go-ahead run at first. Ethan Atchley came on and survived an infield error to load the bases before ending the game on a groundout for his first career save.

Next Up: The series wraps up at 12:05 on Sunday, the Owls final home game until March 17. They open a slate of nine games on the road on Wednesday with a single game at Lamar.

Notes

Rice improved to 5-6 on the season, 5-3 at home, 1-1 on Saturdays, and 10-3 vs. Harvard.
The Owls finished February with a 5-6 record, their most in the season's opening month since they were 7-5 in 2015.
Rice has won the first two series at home for the first time since 2014.
The Owls have 15 home runs in eight games at Reckling this year.
Atchley became the fifth different reliever to save one of the Owls' first five wins this season.
Urbanczyk matched his career high by working five innings and lowered his ERA to 0.87.
Diaz worked a career-best 3.2 innings and struck out three.
Smith has homered in back-to-back games for the first time in his career and has four this season, surpassing his career total of three coming into the season.
Boehm's home run was his first in 57 collegiate at-bats dating back to March 29 last season at Texas Tech against Kansas State in a 6-3 defeat.
Masa Chilcutt reached base for the first time in his career, drawing a pinch-hit walk in the seventh inning.