Rice Owls Club Baseball

Rice’s season came to an end on Sunday, when they fell 5-2 to Stephen F. Austin in game 3 of the District VII championship in Kingwood, Tx. Rice and SFA split the first two games on Saturday, including a dramatic game 2 extra-inning victory for the Owls, setting up the winner-take-all game on Sunday. However, despite coming into the series with a 16 game winning streak, the Owls lost twice in three games to SFA. The Owls fell just short in their quest for the NCBA DII World Series, so close to the end of the #RoadToPaducah.

While the result was disappointing for the Owls, there were still some noteworthy performances. On the mound, Zach Satira threw an 8-inning complete game for Rice’s game 2 win. At the plate, Ryan Monahan led the team with five hits on the weekend.

The Owls split the first two games of the Conference Championship Series with Stephen F. Austin Saturday, losing game one 3-5 and winning 3-1 (8 innings).

The winner of game three advances to the NCBA DII World Series in Paducah, KY. The NCBA is providing coverage of the game at the following site: http://data.iscorecentral.com/iscorecast/baseball/scorecast.html?g=fffb71b6-64fc-4a97-8538-2e15dbca5101&dg=dcb8b12e21340c8b7d1e1f92c137c05eca5613de

The Lee Running Rebels were so rebellious they didn’t even show up, forfeiting all three games to the Owls in the last weekend of regular season play.  The three wins bring the Owls to 17-1 in conference play, with a 16 game winning streak.

Next up for Rice, the District VII championship series will be played on May 4th-5th at LSC-Kingwood against the winner of the western conference, Stephen F. Austin.

The Owls have been recognized in the April 19, 2013 edition of the Rice Thresher. Despite a bunch of errors in the article (Zach is a grad student, not a freshman, Kendall’s a junior), it’s good to see the team getting some added attention while on this 13-game winning streak. The link to the article is below.

http://www.ricethresher.org/club-baseball-aims-toward-trip-to-nationals-1.3031567#.UXGWf4KjW7l

PS. Congrats to Daniel Kaplan on his NCBA DII National Pitcher of the Week award!

The Owls defeated University of Houston three times this weekend to clinch the top spot in District VII-East of NCBA Division II. With the sweep, Rice has now won 13 straight games and is 14-1 in district play. The Owls won the first game 10-4 behind a complete game from Mike Vatcher and offensive production throughout the lineup. In game two, Rice faced Houston’s ace, the only pitcher in the conference who has beaten the Owls this season. In this second matchup, Rice was able to scratch out two runs and win 2-0, thanks to Daniel Kaplan’s dominant complete-game one-hit shutout. Game three wasn’t nearly as tight, with Rice winning 10-1. Zach Satira was strong for six innings, allowing just an unearned run, while Oscar Turner pitched a scoreless 7th to secure the sweep. Eric Manpearl led Rice’s 15-hit onslaught with four hits in the game.

In addition to Manpearl, many other Owls had notable offensive performances in the series. Among others, Alex Kendall had 5 hits to extend his hitting streak to 12 games, Jacob Hernandez had 6 RBI, many of which drove in Chris Walker, who scored 6 runs, Jake Gildan had two multi-hit games in the series, and Ryan Monahan had three hits against the UH ace.

A long fungo golf round between games one and two led to most of the team almost not being ready for game two, and one player accidentally hit his drive into some of the UH players. No punches were thrown. The Rice Thresher will publish an article this Friday about the team, and the article will be posted shortly after.

Rice continued its domination of District 7 East with three decisive wins over Lee College. Rice is now 11-1 in divisional play after winning its 10th game in a row. There were many strong offensive performances for the Owls in wins of 8-3, 17-3 and 8-0. Leading the way offensively was Alex Kendall, who had 7 of the team’s whopping 39 hits. Rice had strong pitching in the series, as has been standard this season. Zach Satira threw a complete game shutout with 11 strikeouts in game 3 to lead the pitching staff. The Owls can clinch the division title next weekend vs Houston, and the Magic Number is 2.

The only question right now with the Owls is whether the sold out crowds and increased attention from ESPN as a result of this historic winning streak will affect the team’s performance on the fungo golf course.

This past weekend, the Owls traveled to New Orleans to take on Tulane just one week after sweeping them in Houston. The outcome would be familiar, with Rice once again winning all three games. In the first game, the offense came alive to back Daniel Kaplan on the mound, and the Owls mercy-ruled Tulane 12-2 in 6 innings. The second game was close until the Owls broke it open with three runs in both the fourth and fifth. Mike Vatcher continued his dominance on the mound with a complete-game shutout in a 6-0 victory. Game three was a nail-biter, and the Owls came away with a 3-2 victory thanks to a strong performance on the mound by Zach Satira, who picked off the potential tying run at second base to end the game. Alex Kendall and Zach Satira led a strong offensive performance for the Owls over the weekend. Rice moves to 8-1 in conference play, and now has a three week break before meeting Lee College in Baytown, April 6-7.