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The Rice Raiders’ varsity baseball team had some quality hitting over the last week of competition. The Raiders found several hits and even played some at-bats with bases loaded with potential to score. However, despite a week of effective hitting at the plate, the Raiders could not get the big swings to bring in scores for the offense. Many runners were left on board as the Raiders struggled to bring runs home from the base path. Even in a game where the Raiders outhit their opponents, they still suffered two-straight blowout losses as they failed to keep pace with their opponents’ scoring.
Vs Tidehaven, L, 10-2 Against Tidehaven, Rice lost the rare game in which they were able to outhit their opponents, finishing with a 7-6 advantage in that category. The true advantage came at the expense of the Raider pitchers on the mound in this game as they conceded 13 walks to the Tigers. The huge number of free bases made each swing for the Tigers more impactful as they started the scoring off early. After scoring just one run in the bottom of the first, Tidehaven scored three more runs in the second, two more runs in the fourth, and four runs in the sixth inning to reach their final score. It took the Raiders a little bit of time to get settled into their own offense as they managed just two runs in the sixth inning before once again going scoreless in the seventh to suffer the loss.
Ruston Krenek led the way at the plate for the Raiders as he led the team with two hits. D’Neriyan Fuller and O’marion Johnson batted in the only runs of the game as they helped Krenek and Aaron Drilik make it home from third to score.
Vs Hallettsville, L, 19-8 The Raiders’ game to end the week against Hallettsville came with one of their best offensive performances of the season despite having some struggles on the defensive end. The Brahmas had a potent opening inning, scoring into double digits to put Rice in a huge deficit on the scoreboard. The Raiders tightened up their defense following that torrid first inning, but the lead was at an imposing size as Rice also struggled to get their offense going at first. However, once the Raider offense did get going, they went on to have some of the best innings offensively of the season. In the middle innings of the game, two elements contributed to Rice cutting into the lead and preventing a mercy-rule ending. For one, their bats started making consistent contact, forcing the fielders to make plays and picking up many base hits to get runners aboard. The second element was the mistakes by the Hallettsville defense that allowed some free bases due to a few wild pitches and errors as well. Rice forced the Brahmas to work with bases loaded situations on several different occasions. Unfortunately, many of those runners were left on as they left some runs out on the field despite a strong outing.
