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April 21, 2006 > Sports > Sooners end baseball win streak at 14 games

Sooners end baseball win streak at 14 games

By Matt McCabe | Thresher Editorial Staff

The second-ranked baseball team’s consecutive win streak ended at 14 games Tuesday at the University of Oklahoma with a 15-3 loss. Rice (32-9, 11-1 Conference USA) still leads C-USA by two games over Houston (25-15, 9-3) entering the second half of conference play this weekend against the University of Southern Mississippi (27-12, 5-4) at Reckling Park. The Owls were plagued by three errors against Oklahoma, two of them in the outfield, which led to the loss.

“Some days nothing works out for you,” head coach Wayne Graham said. “It kind of reaffirms the importance of doing everything right, because you realize that there were three or four key plays that, had we made, it could have been a close game.”

Southern Miss enters the three-game series with Rice having won just one of its three conference series, a sweep of Alabama-Birmingham, which has lost 18 consecutive games. The Owls will open the series Friday at 7 p.m. with senior right-hander Eddie Degerman pitching against Eagle right-hander Scott Massey, who UH touched up for seven runs in less than an inning. Degerman is 8-0 with a 1.29 ERA in 69.2 innings.

“There’s no question that Eddie has been the key factor in our success,” Graham said. “He’s had a stabilizing influence.”

Graham will again look to sophomore right-hander Bobby Bell and junior right-hander Craig Crow for the Saturday and Sunday starts as sophomore left-hander Joe Savery is continuing to rehabilitate his nagging shoulder injury. Graham said Savery will probably not pitch until after the finals break against UH May 12-14.

After losing series to UH and Memphis (21-18, 6-6), Southern Miss is battling for survival, Graham said

“They need to win games to stay in the regional hunt,” Graham said. “Their RPI is still in the 30s, which certainly qualifies them to be a regional team if they right their ship. They’re going to be very hungry and we’re going to need to do things right.”

Rice has an 18-4 record at home, and Graham said that Reckling Park becomes even more of a home-field advantage this time of year due to the wind.

“The game changes when you come to Reckling, because the wind tends to blow in this time of year,” Graham said. “It’s critical that you play the whole game, that you bunt well, that you run the bases well, that you play good defense and that your pitchers throw strikes. The games are likely to be close.”

The Owls played the Sooners evenly through half the game. The score was tied 1-1 entering the bottom of the fifth, but Oklahoma poured on five runs to take the lead for good. Due to two errors in the fifth inning, only two of the six runs given up by the Owls’ starter, sophomore right-hander Will McDaniel, were earned. Four more Owl pitchers came after McDaniel, all giving up at least one earned run.

Surprisingly, had the Owls scored as many runs as they did against Memphis Saturday and Sunday, they would have beaten the Sooners. Rice scored 19 runs Sunday and 22 Saturday against a weak Tiger pitching staff in a hitters’ park.

“The conditions were everything there,” Graham said. “[We] had the ideal hitting conditions — the park is small, the wind is blowing out and the infield is fast as lightning.”

Two Owls in particular took advantage of the favorable conditions. Freshman designated hitter Adam Zornes went 7-10 in the series with four home runs and nine runs batted in, and sophomore shortstop Brian Friday was 9-12 with 10 runs batted in.

“Coach told me that I needed to shorten up my swing,” Zornes said. “I did, and it all came together. When you get hot, you just get that confidence.”

In Sunday’s game, Rice blasted a season-high six home runs in the game and led throughout after a six-run first inning. Crow got the win, throwing five innings and giving up five runs. Sophomore left-hander Bobby Bramhall got the save with four innings of work to seal Rice’s 19-8 victory.

Offensive output was at its height Saturday as the Owls put up 22 runs on 27 hits against Memphis — Rice’s highest run total of the season. The Owls scored 12 runs in the second inning to knock Tiger starter Philip Utley out of the game. Rice hit a team-record 11 doubles, including 4 by Friday. Sophomore right-hander Bobby Bell earned the win in the game, tossing five innings while giving up four runs and striking out seven. The game was shortened to seven innings due to a mercy rule.

Friday’s game was no indication of the offensive production to come in the next two games. Rice only won 7-3 behind another good start from Degerman, who pitched seven innings and allowed three runs. Sophomore left-hander Cole St.Clair pitched the last two innings of the game to get his team-leading sixth save.

Zornes’ hitting display at Memphis should earn him more at-bats in the upcoming series against Southern Miss, Graham said.

“We were a little slow getting Zornes into the mix,” Graham said. “He’s swung the bat well all year — he swung it well in the preseason. It’s no accident. He has a very functional swing, and we’ll probably see a lot of him the rest of the year.”

In addition to Zornes’ appearance in the lineup, freshman designated hitter Aaron Luna played his first two games in the outfield for the Owls in place of struggling sophomore outfielder Chad Lembeck. Luna also played third base for a time while junior third baseman Josh Rodriguez was hurt.

“Luna’s going to be starting at one of the outfield positions, because he’s mobile, he’s got power and he’s qualified to be a starting outfielder,” Graham said. “It’s open to question who the starting outfielders will be.”

The bullpen will be without senior right-hander Ryne Tacker for the rest of the season. Tacker, who suffered a stress fracture in his pitching arm prior to the season, has decided to forgo this season due to injury and will medically redshirt.

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