March 8, 2009

Box Score

HOUSTON -- The Oral Roberts baseball team broke a 3-3 deadlock with two runs in the top of the ninth inning to claim a 5-3 win over the Rice Owls in the finale of the 2009 Rice Invitational presented by Academy Sports + Outdoors, Sunday afternoon at Reckling Park.

Rice rallied to tie the game 3-3 in the seventh, but the Golden Eagles put a pair of runs up in the ninth and held on for a road win. In the ninth Michael Notaro led off with a single down the right field line and advanced to second on a sacrifice bunt. Consecutive doubles by Kyle Price and Danny Duffey scored the game's final two runs.

The loss snapped the Owls' three-game win streak that included wins over Washington State and Notre Dame in the first two games of the annual home tournament. Rice is now 8-4 on the season. Oral Roberts moved to 7-2 overall.

Oral Roberts took the early lead with a pair of runs in the top of the first inning. Leadoff batter Tyler Garewal reached on a Rice fielding error and moved to second on a sacrifice bunt. He scored on a single to center by Golden Eagle catcher Seth Furmanek. Furmanek scored on a long two-out double to right-center by P.J. Sequeira for a 2-0 ORU lead.

Rice got one of the runs back in the bottom of the frame. Jimmy Comerota drew a leadoff walk and advanced to scoring position when Chad Mozingo punched a base hit through the left side. Comerota scored from second on a base hit by Diego Seastrunk to make it a 2-1 game after one full inning.

ODU added a run in the sixth. Garewal doubled to right-center to start it off and he moved up 90 feet on a bunt-single by Juan Martinez. Garewell scored on a sacrifice fly by Furmanek that stretched the margin to 3-1.

The Owls rallied to tie the game in the bottom of the seventh. Steven Sultzbaugh walked with one away and designated hitter Craig Manuel knocked a base hit into the hole on the right side. Sultzbaugh hustled all the way to third on the play and junior Brock Holt, who had entered the game as a pinch-runner for Manuel, moved to second. Sultzbaugh scored on Comerota's RBI ground out. Holt took third on a wild pitch and scored on an infield hit by Mozingo that made it a new game, 3-3. The Blue & Gray was looking for even more in the inning but ORU was able to work out of the jam.

Rice had a runner reaching scoring position in the eighth with just one away, but could convert the opportunity into a go-ahead run. Freshman Taylor Wall started on the mound for Rice and matched his career-longest outing with 6.1 innings. The left-hander from Houston retired 13 in-a-row during one stretch. Mark Haynes, Jordan Rogers and Matt Evers all saw action out of the Owls' bullpen over the final 2.2 innings.

Rice next meets west coast power San Diego in a four-game weekend series to continue its current eight-game homestand. The Owls face the Toreros from Thurs. through next Sun. (Mar. 12-15). Game times with USD are set for 6:30 pm on Thurs. and Friday. Saturday's game is at 2 pm and the series finale is Sunday at 1 pm.