B9:

Comeaux makes a good charging play and bullet throw on a slowish bouncer to get the first out.

Call strike. Check-swing foul tip on ball in the dirt. The three straight balls! STRIKE 3 CALL!! Up and in-ish, but the home plate ump has been calling that a strike all day.

Two outs!

> Breaking ball, low & inside (not in the dirt).
> Call strike "right down the middle"
> Curve breaks down into the zone. Batter frozen., Beautiful!!
> Routine grounder to 2nd ... Cruz bobbles it!! "But Reynolds can't run very well; he's got that bad wheel. He's out at first. This one will be won by the Rice Owls!!"

WooHOO!!!

7-6 ... Rice wins!

Barring a fly ball lost in the sun yesterday, we would have won this series over the best team in CUSA. Credit the guys for not being as depleted as their fan base (myself included). Let’s go turn this sinking ship around!

By the way, when does Dom come back?

(04-01-2018 04:25 PM)4GOwls Wrote:  Hallelujah! A win! Way to go Owls!

Makes yesterday's give-away that much more disheartening as we should have taken this road series against a Top 15 team. Starting pitching was outstanding.

(04-01-2018 04:27 PM)Owl1998 Wrote:  Barring a fly ball lost in the sun yesterday, we would have won this series over the best team in CUSA. Credit the guys for not being as depleted as their fan base (myself included). Let’s go turn this sinking ship around!

By the way, when does Dom come back?

I asked this question on Friday. His hand injury usually takes 4 - 6 weeks, and Dom has now been out for 5 weeks.

I guess wins like this will at least help us make the conference tournament.

I was traveling all day and made it back to see the 9th inning.
Great comeback win for our guys.
Very proud.

Let’s build on this.

Nice comeback Owls. I stepped away for our Easter dinner and frankly didn't expect good news when I came back. Way to show some grit!

USM scored 6 runs, only 1 earned. Owls score 7 runs, only 2 earned.

Pitchers need to have a chat with their respective defenses.

Great relief effort by both Acker (W, 2.1 IP, 2 hits, 0 runs, 1 BB, 2 Ks) and Parthasarathy (Save, 2.0 IP, 0 hits, 0 runs, 0 BBs, 3 Ks). Hopefully, Acker's arm soreness is over (as is Moss'). Jackson appears to have successfully turned the corner, as he's been outstanding his last 4 - 5 outings.

Great opportunity to get a few wins next week against an equally bad ODU team.

We were 2-7 after last year’s first nine conference games too.

15 wins is probably the magic number to make the conference tourney.

The optimist in me tells me we go 18-3 down the stretch in conference play to win 20, win some midweek games, and have a shot at an at-large.

The realist tells me, well, otherwise.

(04-01-2018 02:37 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(04-01-2018 02:32 PM)Almadenmike Wrote:  Eagles try to give us an out. We'll have nothing of it. Give them a 4-pitch walk to load the bases instead. Grrrr.

You are the last Rice fan using “grr”. The rest just whine.

Do you know the difference between a Rice fan and a puppy?


Eventually, the puppy stops whining.

OO, this puppy, like my daughter's sometimes irritating cutie --



-- never stops GRRRR-ing when it's warranted.

:-)

(04-01-2018 05:32 PM)ExcitedOwl18 Wrote:  Great opportunity to get a few wins next week against an equally bad ODU team.

We were 2-7 after last year’s first nine conference games too.

15 wins is probably the magic number to make the conference tourney.

The optimist in me tells me we go 18-3 down the stretch in conference play to win 20, win some midweek games, and have a shot at an at-large.

The realist tells me, well, otherwise.

Agree that we would really need to catch fire to scare an at-large berth although it still seems barely possible. Obviously lots of subjective mumbo jumbo that is built into that black box as well, so not sure if the cold start would count against a respectable final result.

At a minimum, how we woulda coulda shoulda been 2-1 against a really good SoMiss team on the road makes me feel marginally better about future prospects. That is balanced by the fact we have been 1 step forward 2 steps backwards for a few years now.