Tulane Takes to the Road to Face the Rice Owls
Apr 2, 2009 | Baseball
April 2, 2009
Complete Pregame Notes in PDF Format 
New Orleans- Fresh off an 8-7 victory over #2 LSU, the Tulane baseball team will hit the road and head for Houston to take on #4 Rice University at Reckling Park. Tulane is looking to continue the momentum they got going in Wednesday night's win after a tough Conference USA opening weekend against the University of Houston last weekend. The three-game series finds the Green Wave looking to pick up their first victory over the Owls since Rice entered the conference in 2006, with the Owls enjoying 16 wins to Tulane's four in the series history. Rice currently stands at 18-7 (4-2 C-USA).
The Green Wave (17-11, 1-2 C-USA) is being led by senior first baseman Sam Honeck, who has posted a team-high 11 home runs and 43 RBI. Honeck is atop C-USA in both categories as well. Honeck tallied four RBI against LSU Wednesday night, three coming from his eleventh home run ball in the bottom of the first to get Tulane an early lead which they never relinquished.
Also swinging it well for the Wave are junior shortstop Josh Prince (.378, six doubles, four triples, 27 runs scored) and freshman catcher Jeremy Schaffer (.356, three doubles, four home runs, 26 RBI). Prince went 3-5 against LSU while also scoring two runs and leads the team in stolen bases with 22. Schaffer is batting .429 in his last four games while also notching four RBI, including two against LSU, while extending his hitting streak to eight games.
Schaffer is also doing his part to help the club on defense, having thrown out 11 would-be base stealers, a C-USA high. Tulane's defense has turned in some fine performances as of late, committing only one error in their last five games while also dazzling fans with some spectacular plays. In the sixth inning of Wednesday night's contest, LSU's Nicholas Pontiff hit a bullet up the middle that Tulane second baseman Seth Henry barehanded. Henry threw across his body to retire Pontiff, logging the out for the Wave.
From the mound, Green Wave hurlers have also turned in solid outings. Aaron Loup picked up his first win of the season Wednesday in 6.2 innings of work while striking out four and only issuing one walk to the Tigers' line up. Collectively, the Tulane wings sport a 3.66 ERA while tallying 178 strikeouts in 248.2 innings of service.
Tulane will send Conrad Flynn (3-2, 3.92 ERA) to the hill Friday night to open against Rice, following with Matt Petiton (3-1, 4.54 ERA) on Saturday and Josh Zeid (4-0, 2.57 ERA) on Sunday. The Owls' weekend rotation has yet to be determined.
First pitch of the series is scheduled for 6:30PM at Reckling Park in Houston, Texas and all three games of the series will be broadcasted on WRBH 88.3FM.
