Sports

Coogs tagged at Reckling

By Stuart H. Clements
The Daily Cougar

The Cougars have yet to find an answer for the Rice Owls. Then again, itis been two months since anyoneis found an answer for the Owls.

UH was rocked for six runs in the fifth inning on the way to an 11-0 shutout Tuesday night in Game 4 of the Silver Glove Series at Reckling Park.

The loss dropped the Cougars to 14-15. The Owls are 29-1 and have won 26 consecutive games.

They havenit lost since Feb. 16, when Alabama defeated them 6-5 in the third game of the Astros College Classic.

The Owlsi primary weapon in Tuesdayis game was starting pitcher Wade Townsend.

Townsend moved to 4-0 with the win and gave up only one hit the entire game while walking only two Cougars. Townsend gave seven innings of shutout time on the mound. He struck out 10 and walked only two.

"Heis a very good pitcher," Cougar head coach Rayner Noble said. "Thereis a reason why heis had tremendous success. Heis got a lot on the baseball. Heis got a good fastball, mixes his breaking ball when he needs to, heis an aggressive pitcher. Heis a model for pitchers to look at."

The Owls tallied their first hit in the bottom of the first, but the Cougars managed to get out of the first inning with no score. Rice stepped up in the second and third innings and recorded a run in each inning.

It wasnit until the top of the fifth inning that the Cougars recorded a hit. Sophomore shortstop Stuart Musslewhite reached on a single with two outs. But he was caught stealing to end the top of the inning on the next play.

The Owls recorded 12 hits to the Cougarsi 1. Despite the fact that the Owls didnit need any help, Houston gave them a little anyway with two errors.

The Cougars put seven pitchers on the mound Tuesday, starting with junior Gene Flores who threw for two and two-thirds innings. That would be the longest any pitcher went for the Cougars on Tuesday.

Flores gave up two runs on four hits, walked two and struck out two. He dropped to 1-2 with the loss and now possesses a 5.89 ERA.

After Musslewhiteis hit, the score was still only 2-0, but the Owls took off in the bottom of the fifth.

Senior Bryan Harris and junior Brian Henderson were on the mound for Houston and gave up six earned runs between them to give Rice an 8-0 advantage after the fifth.

The Cougar pitching staff assisted the Owls by getting them on base without any effort. Houston pitchers walked eight and Flores and junior Rickey Putman each hit a batter, while freshman Kevin Roberts hit two.

The Owls added one run in the sixth and two in the seventh to make the final score 11-0.

"Weive already put this loss behind us," Noble said. "We were terrible today; every one of us, myself included. Sometimes you have games like today, and the mark of a winner is how well you can bounce back from something like today, and I think weive been fairly resilient this year."

Houston will return to Cougar Field on Friday for a three-game series against Conference USA rival Alabama-Birmingham. The Blazers are 21-6 and boast a 6-2 record in conference, while the Cougars stand at 6-3 in the league.

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