Parker French solidified his value to this year’s roster by starting the season opener and limiting the Owls to 1 earned run in 5 IP. Rice’s lone run came on a sacrifice fly in the first inning. Travis Duke (2.0 IP), Connor Mayes (1.0 IP), and Ty Culbreth equaled French’s effort by providing four innings of scoreless relief.
On offense, Collin Shaw smacked two doubles, the second of which plated two unearned runs in the 7th inning. Shaw’s RBI double proved to be the game-winning hit.
The difference in the opening game of the series was Texas taking advantage of opportunities to score – the Horns scored an unearned run in the 5th, and both runs in the 7th were unearned (hit batter, and fielding error). Comparatively, the Texas defense turned three double plays to quash potential Rice rallies.
/topic/9669-texas-vs-rice-game-3-thread-sat-dh-4-pm/” rel=””>Game 3: Rice 5 – Texas 2
In the second game of Saturday’s doubleheader, the Longhorns never seemed to mentally overcome the narrow loss in the first game. The Owls scored their five runs in three of the first five innings and Texas didn’t score until late in the game.
Sophomore Josh Sawyer made his first career start and took the loss. On the positive side of the ledger, the sophomore pitched two scoreless frames in 4.1 innings of work and induced 7 groundouts. Two freshmen, Jake McKenzie and Tyler Schimpf, combined to provide 3.2 innings of scoreless relief.
Ben Johnson, Brooks Marlow, Bret Boswell and Collin Shaw produced 4 of the Longhorns’ 5 hits – each player hit safely in the first three games of the series. Texas’ two runs came in the form of a 2-run homer off the bat of Tres Barrera.
Rice’s starter, Ricardo Salinas, dazzled in his debut for the Owls. The true freshman tossed six scoreless innings before allowing Barrera’s homerun in the top of the 7th.
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[*]First and foremost, this was a quality series against a talented team played on the road to open the season. Texas has Omaha-level aspirations this year, and this series was an excellent early mental test.
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[*]Texas trailed in both games they won.
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[*]Texas had eleven players make their debuts for weekend:
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[*]In addition to those 11 players, sophomore Kacy Clemens made his first appearance as a pitcher and sophomore Josh Sawyer made his first career start.
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[*]Texas turned four double plays in the four-game series.
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[*]Texas had 3 players hit safely in all 4 games: Johnson, Boswell and Marlow.
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[*]Six Texas pitchers finished the weekend without allowing a run:
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[*]Compounding the emotions of making his pitching debut, Clemens also had a true freshman at Catcher (Cantu).
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