Rice headed home from College World Series

Rice headed home from College World Series
Down-to-the-wire game against LSU sends Owls packing

BY JESSICA STARK
Rice News staff

It was a heartbreaking bottom of the ninth and end of the season for the Rice Owls, who lost to Louisiana State University 6-5 June 17.

Despite a strong, solid offense and good starting pitching, Rice fell in the second round of the College World Series. 

Coach Wayne Graham had hoped starter Chris Kelley could pitch into the sixth inning. Kelley proved he was up for the challenge, throwing 85 pitches and allowing no runs and only four hits. Cole St. Clair took the mound in the sixth and finished out the game.

Adam Zornes and Chad Mozingo scored in the second and a triple from Jared Gayhart drove in Jordan Dodson in the fifth. A solo home run by Aaron Luna in the sixth and a run by Dodson in the seventh notched the score up further in Rice’s favor.

A pair of Tiger runs and base runners in the seventh and eighth put the pressure on, and with bases loaded in the ninth, St. Clair gave up a three-run shot to the Tigers.

Rice and LSU had evenly split their previous 22 meetings, and Rice had bested LSU six to one in NCAA tournament play. Unfortunately for Rice, those numbers have changed, and the Owls’ days in Omaha are over.

The full story on today’s game will be available at http://riceowls.cstv.com/sports/m-basebl/rice-m-basebl-body.html.