SAN ANTONIO – The No. 22 UTSA secured the series sweep over Rice on Sunday afternoon, using a trio of home runs in an exciting 11-6 win at Roadrunner Field.
QUICK HITS
- Antonio Valdez and Matt King led the Roadrunners with two hits apiece.
- Valdez hit his 11th home run of the season, tying Taylor Smith for the team lead, while Leyton Barry hit his eighth and Caleb Hill hit his seventh.
- Starting pitcher Fischer Kingsbery struck out three batters in a couple of innings.
- Ruger Riojas earned his fifth win of the season (5-0), keeping the Owls scoreless in 3.1 innings pitched with three strikeouts.
- The Roadrunners improved to a 36-12 overall record (19-4 in C-USA action), while Rice fell to 17-30 overall (7-17 in conference play).
- UTSA has earned its fifth weekend series sweep, four of them coming in conference play.
- This win and DBU's win today keeps the Roadrunners just half a game back from the Patriots in the race for the top spot in the Conference USA standings.
BREAKDOWN OF THE GAME
Both starters worked fairly quick in the first frame. Kingsbery recorded a 1-2-3 frame with a couple of punchouts.
The Owls began scoring in the second inning as a solo home run opened up the frame. In the bottom of the second, King came in to score on a failed double steal attempt, tying the game up at 1-1.
Ulises Quiroga came in to relieve Kingsbery in the third inning. After hitting the first batter, he forced a groundout and popup. Then, a single put runners on first and third but Quiroga got out of the jam with a flyout.
The Roadrunners took their first lead of the game in the bottom of the third. Valdez hit a three-run homerun, before Hill walked and King tripled to make the score 5-1.
That didn't last very long as the Owls scored five in the top of the fourth on a sacrifice fly, RBI single and three-run home run gave Rice a 6-5 lead.
After a scoreless fifth frame, the Roadrunners got to work in the sixth. Hill opened up the inning with a solo home run to knot the score at 6-6. A couple of batters later, a single by Sammy Diaz and an error on the Owls allowed Diaz to advance to second and King to score, giving UTSA a 7-6 lead.
Two straight hits by pitch to Garrett Poston and Dalton Porter then loaded the bases. Then, Barry came to the plate and demolished a ball to right field for the Roadrunners' third grand slam this season, extending UTSA's lead to 11-6.
Riojas worked through a jam with runners in scoring position in the seventh but got out of it unscathed. In the eighth, the freshman got two quick outs before allowing the next two batters to reach base. Then, Ryan Beaird came in to relieve him and close out the game. Beaird forced a flyout to end the frame.
Beaird continued to work in the ninth. He forced a flyout, before allowing a single. He then got an Owl looking, before ending it with another flyout. UTSA secured the 11-6 win over Rice to take a crucial conference series sweep.
ON DECK
The Roadrunners will not play a midweek in the next week for finals week, but will host a crucial three-game conference series against No. 16 Dallas Baptist on May 12-14 to conclude the home schedule.
-UTSA-