Houston Cougars commit, Rome Shubert (jr), was on the mound Thursday night in Brenham for a 5A playoff game against Georgetown . . . Thursday’s game was the first of a best-of-three series . . . Shubert was lights out for Santa Fe going 6 1/3 innings allowing just one hit and no earned runs . . . Shubert walked only two and struck out seven in earning the win for the Indians, who take a 1-0 series lead with the 6-1 win and can advance to the next round with a win Friday, or in a Saturday game three if necessary. –
Clearwater, Florida was supposed to play host for several days for the Houston Cougars . . . Instead, after a one-run loss on the last batter of the game on Tuesday, and a blowout at the hands of nationally ranked ECU on Wednesday, the rest of the American Championship will be played without the Cougars.
Wednesday, the Cougars had to face American Conference pitcher of the year, lefty Jake Agnos . . . As if that would not be difficult enough under normal circumstances, Houston was facing a team ranked nationally in the top ten, and a team also facing elimination.
Houston pitching was tagged for thirteen runs on fifteen hits against a very good East Carolina offense that was not ready to be sent home . . . It was a tough afternoon for the entire staff.
The Cougars scored their first run of the game in the second inning, without getting a hit . . . Brad Burckel walked to get on base, and after moving around, he would score from third on a wild pitch for the Cougars first and only run against Agnos.
Jared Triolo was 2-for-3 on the afternoon and after getting on base with a double, he would score from third on a Tyler Bielamowicz groundball out to make the score 10-2 . . . The game got further out of hand before finally ending at 13-2, eliminating the Cougars.
The Cougars now wait . . . They have been eliminated from the American Championship, so their fate lies with others . . . There will be a selection process taking place on Monday, and at that point the Cougars will know if they have been chosen to go to a regional, or not. –
The American Conference Championship got underway Tuesday morning in Clearwater, Florida with the first pitch between the UConn Huskies and the Houston Cougars . . . The ability for any team to determine its path can be realized by just playing one game at a time, keep winning, you keep playing, lose a game, and the slope becomes much steeper to climb.
Houston sent Lael Lockhart Jr. to the mound for the morning start, and Lockhart seemed to have adapted well . . . A mistake by Lockhart in the second inning found its way to the left field seats, but Lockhart was very much in control scattering just four other hits through six innings of work as Lockhart took the game into the seventh inning.
Trailing 2-0 in the fourth, Jared Triolo got the Cougars on the scoreboard with a no-doubter to left to cut the lead to 2-1 . . . The homerun was part of a 2-for-4 morning for Triolo . . . Joe Davis evened the score at two with a solo homerun of his own to left-center in the top of the sixth inning.
The Cougars took the lead in the top of the seventh when Kobe Hyland singled home Grayson Padgett to make the score 3-2 . . . Padgett had reached base when he was hit by a pitch and then stole second.
In the bottom of the seventh Lockhart surrendered his fifth and final hit, a homerun to left, which tied the game at three . . . Sean Bretz entered the game and eventually ended the inning, making way for Fred Villarreal . . . Villarreal pitched a scoreless eighth sending the tied ballgame to the ninth.
Houston loaded the bases in the top of the ninth but could not push a run across . . . In the bottom of the ninth, a leadoff single would eventually end up on second, and that run would be driven home by UConn third baseman David Langer with a single to center off of Villarreal to give the Huskies a 4-3 win.
The Cougars will play Wednesday at 2pm Houston time, the opponent is not yet known, but it will be the loser of the East Carolina and Wichita State game which starts forty-seven minutes after the Cougars game ended, so we will know the opponent soon enough. –
For the UCF Knights and the Houston Cougars, fifty-four games would not quite be enough to put the finishing touch on the 2019 regular season . . . The Knights and the Cougars went ahead and played eleven innings on Saturday night in Orlando.
The Cougars fail behind early, and the lesson is clear, digging yourself too deep a hole almost never works out . . . UCF was leading 7-1 by the end of the third and nothing in the Houston offense this week indicated that a comeback was possible . . . However, in the top of the fourth the Cougars put together a rally on a series of two-out two-RBI hits to plate four in the inning and get back into the game 7-5.
In the seventh, the Cougars tied the game at eight capped off by a two-RBI single to left by Joe Davis who batted with the bases loaded after having been intentionally walked three times up to that point (he would also be intentionally walked in the ninth).
The Knights got two runs back in the bottom of the seventh to take a 10-8 lead . . . In the top of the ninth, with Jared Triolo stealing third and Landon Etzel stealing second, the UCF catcher launched his throw into left field . . . Triolo scored easily, and Etzel just barely beat the throw home to score all the way from first on the play and tie the game at ten.
UCF finally broke through in the eleventh when they loaded the bases after an intentional pass and with the infield playing in with one out, a pop fly to left was just out of the reach of a hustling Blake Way, the ball fell in and the winning run crossed the plate for the Knights.
The 11-10 regular season-ending affair lasted just over five hours and the Cougars used six pitchers and plenty of bench players in the effort . . . Of the six pitchers used, Fred Villarreal who pitched two innings, was the only pitcher not to allow a run . . . Houston also left eighteen runners in scoring position . . . The big comebacks are always difficult, so much energy is expended getting the game back to even, that often nothing is left for what comes next.
The Cougars are off until Tuesday morning when they will open the American Conference tournament against UConn in Clearwater, Florida . . . First pitch is at 8am Houston time. –
After a lopsided shutout on Thursday night, Friday night’s game between the Houston Cougars and the UCF Knights proved to be more of a taste of a series between two teams with nearly identical records.
Clay Aguilar took the hill for the Cougars and though he was laboring through long innings early, he was putting up zeroes and keeping the Knights off the board . . . He parted the game with a runner on but no outs in the fifth in favor of Sean Bretz, who subsequently ended the inning and pitched two scoreless innings on the night.
The game slugged along with base runners, but stranded base-runners . . . Neither team scored until the top of the seventh, and neither team scored after that frame.
Joe Davis would provide all the offense the Cougars needed on Friday night when he hit a two-run homerun to center in the seventh, his seventeenth of the season, and his first since April 12th at Wichita State . . . For Davis the homer was part of a 2-for-3 night, only Brad Burckel joined Davis with multiple hits in the game.
Fred Villarreal pitched a scoreless final three frames to earn his tenth save of the year . . . For UCF, this was their first nine-inning shutout of the season . . . Sean Bretz picked up the win, his second of the year . . . Clay Aguilar lowered his ERA to 2.65, which is an extraordinary number for someone who did not start the season as the “Saturday starter” but has moved into the role nicely.
The Cougars can claim the road series on Saturday when they conclude the series with UCF at 5pm Houston time in Orlando. –
The season’s final series of the year got underway on Thursday evening in Orlando, Florida as the University of Central Florida Knights hosted the Houston Cougars . . . The Knights and the Cougars entered Thursday with relatively equal records overall, both in and out of conference.
Knights starter Grant Schuermann had the Cougars solved early on it seemed . . . Houston had a runner reach third only once, in the fourth inning . . . Schuermann went eight scoreless innings allowing only four Cougars hits.
Lael Lockhart Jr. was a tough-luck loser on the night, he pitched reasonably well and was not hit very hard . . . A pop foul that should have been caught by either Kyle Lovelace or Joe Davis was instead a second chance for catcher Dallas Beaver, who then walked, and would eventually score, while there were also two errors behind Lockhart in the inning, an inning where the Knights scored three times to take a 3-0 lead.
Nolan Bond relieved Lockhart in the sixth and took the game into the ninth when Spencer Hynes pitched a scoreless frame in his first game action since April 6.
Only five Cougars had base hits on Thursday, with Joe Davis collecting two of them in a 2-for-4 effort . . . The Cougars led off the ninth who two singles by Wendell Champion and Joe Davis, but they would remain on second and first respectively as the next three batters each went down on strikes and handed UCF an 8-0 shutout.
The final regular season series of the season continues Friday in Orlando at 5pm Houston time. –
Jared Pettitte prepares for the first pitch Tuesday in Sugar Land. Photo by Cougars Beat.
After a soggy week in the Houston area, Constellation Field in Sugar Land provided a perfect atmosphere for baseball on Tuesday night as the Houston Cougars and Rice Owls played their third game of the season against each other, this one was the rubber game to see who would take home the Silver Glove.
Jared Pettitte made his fourth start of the season and he was getting good movement in his three innings of work . . . Leadoff walks in the third and fourth would score in both innings, the only two runs of the night for Rice . . . In both instances, the leadoff walks were followed by more free baserunners, a walk in the third and a hit batter in the fourth.
The Cougars got on the board in the fifth when Tyler Bielamowicz hit a sacrifice fly to right field that scored Jared Triolo who had reached base by getting hit by a pitch to lead off the inning.
Aside from Cherry, Houston’s offense was mostly silenced by Rice pitching . . . The Cougars were limited to the one run and only six hits . . . The six hits were collected by only three Cougars, Cherry had three, Burckel had two, and Jared Triolo had a two-out single in the six . . . Nine walks kept runners on the bases all evening for the Cougars, that make the fourteen runners left on base a difficult stat to accept in a one-run loss.
Cougars pitching did not allow a run after the fourth inning as Nolan Bond, Brayson Hurdsman, and Devon Roedahl went the final six innings worth and only allowed two hits.
Derrick Cherry reached base all five times he batted on Tuesday with three singles and two walks . . . A disciplined ninth inning at-bat ended with a one-out single to center that moved Brad Burckel from first to second ahead of potential late-inning heroics, but it was not to be as the next two Cougars batters both grounded out to give Rice the 2-1 victory and the Silver Glove to hold onto for a year.
The Cougars will travel to Orlando, Florida to begin a three-game weekend series with the University of Central Florida to close out the regular season schedule . . . The series in Orlando begins Thursday at 5:00pm local time. –
Sunday afternoon offered the Houston Cougars and the Tulane Green Wave a complete contrast to Saturday afternoon and evening, and early Sunday morning for that matter . . . Where Saturday was rainy, then misty, then humid, then misty again, Sunday was occasionally breezy, sunny with a blue sky and white clouds, and about half as humid as Saturday at the ballpark.
Sunday was also Mother’s Day and Senior Day, so it made sense for the weather to cooperate . . . Cougars fans bid farewell and said thank you to Joe Davis, Nolan Bond, Grayson Padgett, Rey Fuentes, and Ryan Randel . . . Randel and Bond had something extra for the fans, and for the Tulane offense.
After two quiet innings, Derrick Cherry put the Cougars on the board and in the lead with a two-RBI single in the third . . . The single scored both Kyle Lovelace and Jared Triolo who had both walked to reach base . . . Cherry was 3-for-4 on the afternoon with two RBI on the afternoon.
The Cougars added another run the seventh when Kobe Hyland hit a two-out RBI double to center in the 7th to take a 3-0 lead.
Ryan Randel was very good on Sunday and was not in much trouble at any point . . . When Randel exited after 7 1/3 innings, he had only allowed 2 unearned runs on three hits . . . He left with the bases loaded after an error, a batter hit by a pitch, and an intentional walk, so it was not the worst of circumstances . . . Two runs would score on a bloop hit off of Nolan Bond, who had taken over on the mound for Randel in the eighth, but the damage was limited and Houston held on to a 3-2 lead.
Houston started the eighth with two singles before Tyler Bielamowicz put down a sacrifice bunt to score Jared Triolo and Lael Lockhart Jr. followed with a single to center batting right-handed – it was Lockhart’s second hit of the game, this one scoring Derrick Cherry and giving the Cougars a 5-2 lead.
Bond recorded the final five outs of the game, escaping too much damage in the eighth and getting Tulane down in order in the ninth to close out the game . . . Bond earned his first save of the year in securing the 5-2 win . . . Ryan Randel he picked up his fourth win of the year.
After playing 28 innings of baseball in the last 25 hours, the Cougars are off on Monday and return to action on Tuesday against Rice down in Sugar Land at Constellation Field . . . First pitch is at 7:05pm. –
Houston hosted Tulane on Saturday with the threat of rain. Photo by Cougars Beat.
The Houston Cougars and the Tulane Green Wave had to wait for yet another rain storm to pass before they finally begin their scheduled doubleheader, one hour later than originally planned . . . Once the first pitch was finally thrown, with light rain still falling, it was the beginning of over eight hours of baseball as Saturday afternoon eventually ran into Sunday morning.
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A sixteen-minute delay began at 1am as the ballpark lights went out because they were on a timer and set to shut-off . . . Once the lights go out, they need fifteen minutes to warm-up and power-on again.
Houston Cougars faces UNLV Sunday at Schroeder Park. Photo by @5_Coogs via Twitter.
A sunny and hot afternoon with clouds dotting the sky greeted the UNLV Rebels and the Houston Cougars Sunday afternoon at Schroeder Park . . . The Cougars arrived winners of two straight, including a 2-0 shut-out of UNLV on Saturday night.
Left-hander Clay Aguilar started Sunday’s game and surrendered a run in the opening frame, Cougars would get it back quickly when Jared Triolo hit his sixth homerun of the season to leadoff the bottom of the first . . . For Aguilar, the looping single by Bryson Stott to leadoff the game was the last batter to reach base until the fifth inning, Aguilar retired thirteen straight Rebels in that span . . . For Triolo, the leadoff homerun was the first of five hits in the game in a 5-for-5 afternoon that included five RBI.
The Cougars started their half of the sixth with three straight doubles followed by a single, they would score two runs in the inning to extend their one-run lead to 5-2.
Clay Aguilar exited the game in the sixth with two outs and runners on second and third . . . Sean Bretz entered the game and walked the bases loaded, but clutch pitching left the bases loaded for the Rebels in the sixth and Bretz would work out of another bases-loaded situation in the seventh inning . . . Bretz went a total of 1 1/3 innings scoreless to bridge the game from Aguilar to Villarreal.
The Cougars offense scored two runs in four different innings on Sunday . . . The offense also pounded out seventeen hits and even though they scored nine runs, they had plenty of opportunities to score more runs leaving eleven runners on base . . . Every Houston starter got at least one base hit, with Derrick Cherry and Kobe Hyland both getting two hits, and Grayson Padgett got two hits going 2-for-2 off the bench.
Righty Fred Villarreal handled the final two innings of action on Sunday, entering the game in the top of the eighth . . . Villarreal retired all six batters he faced, getting four groundballs to help his cause, and he did it all on only eighteen pitches . . . Aguilar collected his sixth win on the year in his tenth start, he allowed only two runs in his 5 2/3 innings and struck out four.
The Cougars are off now until Wednesday when they face Florida Atlantic University at Schroeder Park . . . Houston takes a three-game winning streak into the midweek matchup . . . First pitch is at 6:30pm on Wednesday. –
Houston Cougars Baseball Beat 