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Rice baseball season ends with loss to LSU
Owls’ season full of team, individual achievements

BY JESSICA STARK
Rice News staff

Rice’s road to Omaha came to an end in Baton Rouge, La., when the team lost to LSU 5-3. After losing the first game in the best-of-three super regionals, the Owls needed to win Saturday to continue battling for a place in the NCAA College World Series. (For full game coverage, visit http://riceowls.cstv.com/sports/m-basebl/recaps/060609aab.html.) The Owls concluded their season 43-18.

	In the ninth round of the Major League Baseball Draft, the Baltimore Orioles chose Ryan Berry (left), making him the 266th player selected June 10. His teammate Brock Holt (right) was selected as the 265th pick in the same round by the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Though losing out on a bid to play in their fourth consecutive College World Series and sixth since 2001, the Owls had a season that was full of team and individual achievements.

The Owls made their 15th consecutive trip to the NCAA Championship, after earning their 14th consecutive conference title. Conference titles are awarded for winning either the regular season conference championship or the conference tournament championship. Rice has won one of those two, usually both, every year since 1996.

Those weren’t the only conference awards: Six Owls were selected for the Conference USA All-Tournament team, including Anthony Rendon as the most valuable player. Ryan Berry, Diego Seastrunk, Steven Sultzbaugh, Rick Hague and Taylor Wall all were voted to the league’s all-tourney squad.

In March, Berry became the first player in C-USA history to earn league Pitcher of the Week honors in three consecutive weeks. The third week marked the seventh time he earned the award — a record in C-USA history.

Rendon’s honor and heartbreak

Rendon also earned one of the country’s most coveted awards: Already an All-America selection by Collegiate Baseball, the third baseman was named 2009 Louisville Slugger National Freshman of the Year. Rendon is the Owls’ first National Freshman of the Year since 2005, when the honor went to Joe Savery, an eventual first-round draft pick by Major League Baseball.

The award is a crowning achievement for Rendon, who became the first player in C-USA history to be named both the league Player of the Year and Freshman of the Year in the same season. He was also named one of 30 national semifinalists for the 2009 USA Baseball Golden Spikes Award, which recognizes the nation’s premier amateur baseball player. Rendon was the only freshman on that list. He was also a national semifinalist for the Dick Howser Trophy, which recognizes the top college player as selected by the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association.

Anthony Rendon was injured in the second inning of the Owls’ final game of the season. He was carried off the field by teammates Mark Haynes and Andrew Benak.

While the baseball world is focused on Rendon, he is focused on one thing: getting healthy. In heartbreaking fashion, on his 19th birthday he was injured in the second inning of the Owls final game of the season. He was chasing down a foul ball and got tangled up with shortstop Rick Hague, who was also attempting to make a play on the ball. The two Owls collided, and Rendon went down. He was carried off the field by teammates Mark Haynes and Andrew Benak. When Jimmy Comerota came over from first base to take Rendon’s position, it was the first time for any Owl other than Rendon to play third base this year.

“That was very tough to see Anthony be taken out the game,” said Brock Holt, Rice’s second baseman. “He has been our best player the whole season, and we’ve been counting on him for big hits. But, we do have guys that can step in and play well. Every guy on our team is capable of getting a big hit.”

What a season

The injury was telling of the season that coach Wayne Graham has called the most stressful of his career.

“We had a great year, but we didn’t have our two best pitchers,” Graham said. “To play with all the problems and have year they’ve had — winning two championships, the conference tournament and regional. Considering the adversities we had to overcome, it was a great year, and I love this team for doing that, for hanging in there.”

Rice was without its top two pitchers, Berry and Mike Ojala, for the better part of five weeks but still was a full 20 games over .500. Berry was sidelined for more than a month with an injury: a muscle strain in his rotator cuff. The injury didn’t require surgery, just rest. Ojala’s injury, a torn ulnar collateral ligament in his pitching arm, will require surgery. The gutsy right-hander decided to postpone the surgery until the season’s end.

	Coach Wayne Graham watches his Owls during the NCAA Super Regionals.

“On the field, we have as good of a team as we’ve ever had,” Graham said. “We just ran a little short on pitchers. We got some bad breaks in recruiting. We lost two guys that we weren’t expecting to, and our freshman popped a ligament in his elbow. I really think that we were better than we’ve ever been, and some of those guys are coming back.”

Outfielder Chad Mozingo suffered an injury to the hook of his hamate bone in his right hand but wasn’t ready to hang up his cleats, and designated hitter Jess Buenger still has pain where a dislocated tendon in his ankle was repaired by surgery.

Sheer stubbornness and tenacity pushed the players forward. But that could be expected from a team of such outstanding student-athletes. These are men who spend their free time in the library, pushing themselves for one more hour of studying. They are men who make time to visit Texas Children’s Hospital for one more visit with a favorite little patient. These are the leaders who help organize Rice’s Orientation Week for incoming freshmen.

To learn more about the Rice baseball’s team postseason, visit http://media.rice.edu/media/2009_NCAA_Super_Regionals.asp. For baseball news, visit http://riceowls.cstv.com/sports/m-basebl/spec-rel/rice-m-basebl-spec-rel.html.