Cougars plan to muzzle
Bulldogs
By Stuart h. Clements
Daily Cougar Staff
The Houston baseball team jumped to No.
5 in the Baseball America Poll this week after making a clean sweep of
Tulane over the weekend and
improving its record to 18-7, 5-1 in Conference
USA play.
Pin Lim/The Daily Cougar
Junior Brett Cooley uppercuts
a pitch. Cooley leads the team with five home runs this season.
Houston took two losses last week from
then No. 4 Rice. The Owls' performance against the Cougars moved them to
No. 3 in the polls.
The Cougars have a chance to extend their
new winning streak to four games when they go head-to-head with the Fresno
State Bulldogs at 7 p.m.
Tuesday.
The Bulldogs are a Western Athletic Conference
contender and will compete against conference rival Rice this weekend in
a three-game series.
Fresno State is looking to improve its
17-13 record.
The Bulldogs are on an 11-game winning
streak, and Saturday, senior right-handed pitcher Bob Runyon threw his
first shutout of the season
against Louisiana Tech to earn honors
as WAC Pitcher of the Week.
Runyon has a 4.61 ERA this season and a
4-5 record. Saturday marked his third straight win.
Fresno State's Casey McGehee leads the
Bulldog offense with a .359 batting average, seven home runs and 33 RBI.
The Cougars had their second shutout of
the season Friday with sophomore right-hander Brad Sullivan on the mound.
Sullivan held the Green
Wave to just four hits while Houston scored
eight runs for the win.
Sullivan improved to 5-0 and has an astounding
1.01 ERA.
The Cougar offense is currently led by
junior Jesse Crain, who is batting .349 with three home runs and 17 RBI.
Junior Chris Snyder leads in RBI with 19
and junior Brett Cooley leads the team in home runs with five.
Junior Danny Zell will take the hill as
the starting pitcher today. The southpaw has a 5.14 ERA and is looking
for his first decision of the season
against Fresno State.
The Bulldogs' starting pitcher will be
either redshirt sophomore Mike Hernandez or freshman Sean Ruthven.
Hernandez and Ruthven both have a 1-1 record,
but Hernandez has a 4.71 ERA while Ruthven holds a 6.00 ERA.
The Cougars hit the road to spend the weekend
in Hattiesburg, Miss., where they will face conference foe Southern Mississippi
in a three-game
series. The Golden Eagles are 17-7 overall
and 5-1 in league play.
All Cougar baseball games are broadcast
on KGBC Radio AM 1540.
