Weekend Preview: Houston College Classic

by 40AS on Mar 5, 2010 9:00 AM CST in Texas Longhorns Baseball

[UPDATE: A familiar theme -- great pitching, good defense, just enough offense -- leads Texas to a 2-1 victory over rival Rice. Taylor Jungmann gets no decision but pitched 7.2 innings giving up just one run while Chance Ruffin gets the win by striking out the side in the 9th. An 8th inning Tant Shepherd double provided the game winner.]

It's a big weekend for Texas sports. The Baseball Longhorns head down to Houston for three games against three quality opponents in the Houston College Classic. When we were growing up, there was something called the Winn-Dixie Showdown or some such thing. It took place in the Superdome, and the three Louisiana schools would invite three schools from another state for a little rounds robin--so for instance, LSU, UNO, and Tulane would play one game each against Texas, A&M, and Rice--or Florida, FSU, and Miami, or Ole Miss, Mississppi State, and USM. You get the idea. Anyway, it was always a lot of fun and we're very pleased to see a similar concept, a round-robin situation among major programs, gathering steam in Texas as this will mark the 10th annual Classic.

Heading into Friday's game, the biggest story to watch as far as Texas goes is actually two days away. The Texas Sports preview lists Sunday's starter as "TBA," meaning that Cole Green may already be getting a shot at snatching the Sunday slot away from sophomore Austin Dicharry. The fact is, whichever one ends up with the Sunday job will be Texas' least imposing weekend starter and whichever one loses the battle will be the best middle reliever in the bullpen. As usual, Taylor Jungmann will start on Friday and Brandon Workman on Saturday.

On the offensive side of things, Texas is coming off a pretty poor performance--albeit a win--against Texas Pan-Am in the midweek contest. As we are quick to note each year, though, most every college team has one top-notch pitcher and most every midweek opponent Texas has will be throwing its ace in Austin. It's worth pointing out that this will be the Longhorns' first games outside of the friendly confines of the Disch in 2010--and that's particularly exciting because of the Astros' little league distance on the left field fence. Texas has shown surprising power even in Austin, where homeruns are hard to come by. They have nailed five dingers through eight games.

Texas will play Rice on Friday, Houston on Saturday, and Missouri (the lone non-Texas team) on Sunday. A bit of information about each opponent after the jump.

The Owls, obviously a traditional power, started the season 0-4 due to a sweep in Palo Alto at the hands of the same Stanford team that Texas swept last weekend, followed by a home loss to Lamar. But since then they seem to have righted the ship, scoring five straight wins including a 4-3 victory over Nebraska and an 8-2 win over Houston. Keep an eye out for Michael Fuda, who has started the season absolutely scorching. Through the Owls' first nine games, he is hitting .455 and slugging .788 with two homers and, even more impressively, two triples. The Rice pitching staff has had some control issues, walking 36 and striking out only 18 thus far--though that 2:1 walk to k ratio won't last.

Houston comes into the weekend at 2-5 after starting the year with a worrying home sweep at the hands of Texas State. Houston is the only one of the Longhorns' opponents on the weekend which has announced its starter: Texas will face Michael Goodnight on Saturday. Goodnight has 13 strikeouts in 9.2 innings thus far, but he carries with him a 6.52 ERA and opponents have hit a healthy .257 against him. The Cougars' offensive star is probably Matt Creel, who is hitting .419 and has driven in nine runs. Joel Ansley is also off to a good start, hitting .435 including one of Houston's three homeruns on the season.

Finally, Texas' Sunday opponent is Missouri in an always-fun non-conference game against a conference opponent. Maybe Augie pitches the guy he doesn't think is actually going to be the conference Sunday starter just so that Mizzou doesn't get an early look at him? That would be awfully sneaky. Missouri comes in at 4-2, only having played six games because presumably it is too cold in Columbia to welcome opponents for midweek games. This will be their third straight weekend traveling to start the season. Aaron Senne is coming off a huge week in which he was named the Big XII Offensive Player of the Week--and he did it against some serious competition as Missouri travelled to Auburn and played the hosts, Florida Atlantic, and Boston College (remember them?). Michael Liberto is hitting .571 for the Tigers--and even though it's early in the season, to have had a base hit in more than half of your at-bats in any six-game stretch is impressive.

For those of you in Houston, head to the Juice Box for some great college ball this weekend. TCU and Tech will also be there, and you can get tickets here. A three-day pass is $30, which is actually a great price for nine baseball games. On the other hand, if you actually attend all nine games...well, we guess that would make you our hero.

0 recs | 197 comments

Comments

On another note

Horns have lost 4 straight to Rice. Game 1 starts at 7 PM, this can be the open thread.

40AS - March 5, 2010 reply

#1 UVA goes down to Wright State in a pitchers duel (2-1)

Texas Wahoo - March 5, 2010 reply

Does anyone know if this game will be available online?

Texas Wahoo - March 5, 2010 reply

No tv, Internet radio

It’s 1300 or bust for this one

40AS - March 5, 2010 via mobile reply

I've gotten spoiled

Why does DFF have better TV coverage than Minute Maid Park???

Texas Wahoo - March 5, 2010 reply

Join the club

I’ve forgotten what it was to not be able to watch college baseball on TV

40AS - March 5, 2010 reply

Free online video

Just discovered this today. Don’t know what kind of audio comes with it, if any, but it’s better than nothing.

http://mlb.mlb.com/media/video.jsp?topic_id=6261176

bassale47 - March 5, 2010 reply

That's fantastic

Thanks!

40AS - March 5, 2010 reply

Nebraska is getting lit up 13-1

What happened to them? I remember when they were always a threat to go to Omaha.

Texas Wahoo - March 5, 2010 reply

TCU beat Tech 11-2

And Houston beat Mizzou 3-0

Good showing so far for the Big XII.

40AS - March 5, 2010 reply

Why do we have to play Mizzou instead of TCU?

We’ll play Mizzou later anyway.

Texas Wahoo - March 5, 2010 reply

It's not a true tournament

Just a series of games

40AS - March 5, 2010 reply

Right, but you would think they wouldn't want Big XII teams to play each other.

Texas Wahoo - March 5, 2010 reply

Lineup for the Horns

Shepherd — 1B
Loy — SS
Rupp — C
Keyes — RF
Moldy — DH
Rowe — CF
Kevin Lusson — 3B
Kyle Lusson — LF
Etier — 2B
Jungmann — P

40AS - March 5, 2010 reply

Horns the home team

About to get under way…last time Texas played at MinuteMaid (I think):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBiOpDn7W5U

40AS - March 5, 2010 reply

I'm gonna take off in just a few if anybody's around and wants to give some updates

40AS - March 5, 2010 reply

I'll try to give periodic updates

Jungman K’s the first batter!

Texas Wahoo - March 5, 2010 reply

Rice threatening

men on first and second, 2 outs.

2 Ks, 2 BBs so far.

Texas Wahoo - March 5, 2010 reply

Anyone notice

We play Rice three different times, all in one game series? Kinda unique

Jhal2315 - March 5, 2010 reply

We do it every year

Since their so close, we don’t want to take up a whole weekend for it.

Texas Wahoo - March 5, 2010 reply

I knew we played them every year

I just didn’t know we did it 3 different times

Jhal2315 - March 5, 2010 reply

Loy legs out a grounder to the SS and makes it

throw was way off.

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