April 13, 2008

Extended Standings and Results in PDF Format

With many C-USA teams at the halfway point of the conference season, a familiar team has moved back to the top of the league standings. Following a weekend sweep of UAB, the Rice Owls are perched atop the C-USA standings, a place that they've been for much of their three seasons in the league.

Rice needed some dramatics on Sunday afternoon to finish off its series sweep of the Blazers. The Owls scored once in the bottom of the ninth inning to force extra innings and then Diego Seastrunk hit a walk-off grand slam in the bottom of the tenth to give Rice a 12-8 victory. The Owls had won the series opener on Friday, 13-11 and took Saturday's contest, 11-4. Rice scored 11 or more runs in all four games that it played this week.

East Carolina continues to move up the conference chart. After opening league play at 1-3, the Pirates have climbed to 8-4, thanks to a five-game winning streak in Conference USA action. ECU also used some late drama to secure its weekend sweep of Marshall. Trailing, 3-2, Harrison Eldridge tripled and scored on a Ryan Wood single. After a Stephen Batts ground out, Corey Kemp stepped to the plate and homered in his fourth straight game, marking his eighth game-winning RBI this season and giving the Pirates a 5-3 victory. ECU won the first two games, 7-4 and 4-3.

Houston slipped to second place, despite taking two-of-three from Tulane. Wes Musick came out on top of Friday night's showdown against Shooter Hunt, as UH won, 4-3. On Saturday, the Cougars held a 5-3 lead before Tulane's Matt Petiton came out of the bullpen to shut down UH. After hitting the first batter he faced, Petiton sat down 18 consecutive hitters, including six via the strikeout. On Sunday, Houston would win the series with an 11-7 decision, as six different Cougar batters had two or more hits.

UCF posted its first C-USA series win of the season, winning on Friday and Sunday afternoon against Memphis, while dropping an extra-inning decision in-between. Junior SS Eric Kallstrom extended his hitting streak to 13 games in the series, while Sophomore Carmine Giardina and junior reliever Matt Manning combined on a two-hitter to finish off the Tigers on Sunday in a 10-4 decision.

Southern Miss hosted Arkansas State this weekend and took all three games from the Red Wolves. Tyler Conn earned saves in two of the games, giving him 12 on the season, just four shy of tying the Conference USA single-season record.